


I Borrow the Stilts of an Old Tragedy

by stella_bella



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-14
Updated: 2014-01-15
Packaged: 2018-01-08 18:52:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 19
Words: 32,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1136189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stella_bella/pseuds/stella_bella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Sam ran away with Dean instead of leaving for Stanford?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> For Penny, wherever she is. <3

John drives fast, the storm on his heels unrelenting and dark. He drives with his foot flat to the floor and teeth clenched, but with the radio turned down low in deference to the sleeping boys in the back.

They left in a hurry, once he’d finally made up his mind. Took a while, a couple months of living in the temporary apartment provided by the insurance company while the house was repaired, blue tarp flapping in the winter wind, hiding and revealing flashes of charred boards and empty space like a child’s game of peek-a-boo.

He kept on at the garage, working longer hours even, but eventually the things he learned at night - the secrets buried in old books and manuscripts once dismissed as fiction - they started taking on a new and terrible significance. He often fell asleep pillowed on woodcuts of burning witches or descriptions of hauntings in places miles and years away, waking to the sound of Saturday morning cartoons and childish giggles. He donned a frown like a uniform, and eventually even his friends at the garage stopped pushing for him to eat lunch with them like old times; he’d usually work straight through anyway, grease-stained fingers stilling on the jack as his thoughts drifted back to the words he'd read the night before.

The rain threatened the whole time while he packed, Sammy sleeping in a blanket nest on the thrift-store couch, and Dean alternating between watching him and watching John throw all of their belongings into his old army duffles. His eyes were dark and seemed to know more than should be understood at that age, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t ask any questions; just picked up Sammy carefully, like always, _Dad I got him, it’s okay,_ and trotted out to the car.

They were ten minutes out of town when the skies opened up, and John drove faster. Every time he glanced in the rearview mirror, Dean was watching him, arms securely around his little brother, since they didn’t have a carseat anymore.

He drives until it is just instinct and trained reflexes keeping the car on the road, thoughts dulled by the low rumble of the engine. Dean’s asleep now, has been for some time, lulled by the rain that has since tapered off, the car sliding out from under the low-hanging cloud as they crossed the state line some hours back. John drives and tries not to think about the enormity of what he is intending to do, early dawn light spreading across the sky to the east. He drives and taps the wheel and plans.


	2. Chapter 2

The motel smells like cat pee.

It’s really gross, and Sam hates it, though dad and Dean don’t even seem to notice. What else is new.

Three days later, the new room smells like cigarette butts, and the bathroom smells like mold. It doesn’t matter, since he knows they’ll be gone before he gets the chance to become deathly allergic and die. Unfortunately.

Three months later, it's cheap air freshener and mothballs. Definitely an improvement. What’s not an improvement is that it’s a motel, still and again and always. To other people, maybe, hotels are a means to an end, a temporary respite that is passed through and forgotten. But then again, as dad never gets tired of reminding them, they are not other people.

Sam remembers seeing a couple kids in one of his schools with souvenir books of stamped pennies and park tickets, neat photo albums of cross-country trips with mom and dad and an Airstream trailer. He amused himself during their cookie-cutter presentations - What I Did On My Summer Vacation - by imagining his own album.

_Here’s a photo of my brother with his first shotgun, and here’s one of my dad on the bed after he passed out in Arkansas on a bender and almost got the cops called on us when he started yelling at Pastor Jim over the phone because the guy was stupid enough to call on the anniversary of mom’s death asking for help or something. And this is the abandoned house in Maine where he left us food for two weeks and then didn’t show back up for almost three. This is a picture of the first time he had to stitch Dean up after a hunt, and this one here is the first time I had to do it. And you’ll notice there’s none of me, but that’s okay because I don’t want to remember anything and I certainly don’t want to be a part of it._

He wasted the last few minutes before the bell imagining the reaction of his classmates, his teacher. Would they call Child Protective Services? It wouldn’t be the first time. Would they even believe him?

Sam decided that the way his life was going, if he told, he’d probably end up drooling in a straightjacket, doped up on Thorazine and endless reruns of afternoon soaps. Despite his revulsion at _that_ image, Sam couldn’t muster up anything stronger than resignation. He didn’t even believe it himself half the time.

Three years later, the motel smells like Clorox unsuccessfully attempting to mask stale cigarette smoke, and the bathroom smells like Pine-Sol, but he doesn’t notice any of that, because that’s the day he finally kisses his brother. On the mouth.

It was something he’d been thinking about for a long time before he actually did it. A long time like, years, which is fully equivalent to eons in teenager time. That first time, Sam was thirteen and flirting with the beginnings of his first growth spurt. He was achey all the time, stretching bones attempting and often failing to contain ten thousand tons of explosive anger wired to a hair trigger. Anything could set it off - being distracted from his English essay by demands (John) and entreaties (Dean) to get off his ass and help figure out what the hell it was that was terrorizing the fishermen on the river; John showing up drunk and belligerent at 4:00 am; having to leave town in the middle of the night (again) with someone covered in blood (again) and someone else cursing like that would help (it never did) and the lone sane one (Sam, always Sam) praying for the sirens to go the other way.

One night, sulking on the bed (Dad stormed out after a disagreement over whether or not final exams outweighed a slaughtered family two states over, and Dean was who-knows-where doing who-knows-what, or maybe who-knows- _who_ ), resentful and hurting, curled under and over his own praying mantis legs, Sam decided that he would sell his soul to the Devil without a second thought if his list of worries could start with pimples and end with tan blonde cheerleaders. As it was, he walked around in a black mood half of the time, worrying John and making Dean raise an eyebrow over the top of _Motor Trend_ or _Maxim_ at the sheer size of both the books he hauled around and the scowl on his face. And while he generally buried his nose in stories of ancient Mesopotamian legends in order to forget the feel of the gray slimy film on a kelpie’s skin, or the sounds his dad made during a particularly bloody backseat surgery, or the pee-vomit-disinfectant stink of every gas station bathroom in the country, sometimes Sam read so he didn’t have to think about Dean.

The only problem was that Dean was not the kind of person who is easy to forget.

He wore steel-toed boots and soft faded denim and smelled of leather and axle grease and gun oil and something richer and deeper and earthy. His hair got lighter streaks during the summer, freckles multiplying over his cheekbones, and his lashes were longer than any girl’s that Sam had ever seen. His smile could light up the room like a fucking firework, and sometimes when he looked at Sam there was something tender in his eyes, something that burned painfully bright and open, and then buried itself under smirks and smiles and a teasing jab.

Sam lived (lives, will always live) for that look.

He didn’t admit it, though. Probably didn’t even realize it, since it would be so far away from Normal that even their fucked-up family trajectory wasn’t on approach. Instead, it manifested itself in bizarre urges.

Like That Night, when Dean couldn’t sleep, pacing past the motel’s ugly orange curtains and tapping out a rhythm on his thigh. It wasn’t yet midnight, darker than a bugbear’s cave and silent on the edge of town, and Dean was a ball of tension he wouldn’t admit to, since it was just a coincidence that the phone hadn’t rang in nearly a day and John was officially twenty-seven hours and a handful of minutes overdue.

Sam sat on the bed, playing with a thread from the bedspread and pretending to study his history textbook. Pretending that he wasn’t worried too, and even more than that, pretending that he didn’t keep getting distracted from the constant merry-go-round of _Dad’s not back not back not back yet_ by the curve of Dean’s cheek and the calloused grip of his fingers on denim. Didn’t matter, since he didn’t exist for Dean right then. So he gave up and stared all he wanted to, watching the lines of muscle shift under Dean’s worn black t-shirt, the way his jeans stretched around his legs.

When he turned, the sodium streetlight outside highlighting his face, Sam caught a glimpse of his mouth, lips fuller than normal and shiny where he’d been worrying them with his teeth. _I wonder what they’d feel like.._. And then Sam blushed five thousand shades of red and jerked his eyes towards a paragraph on the Revolutionary War, where he determinedly kept them for the next three hours, not absorbing a word and never even turning the page, blushes coming and going with varying intensities as he remembered that he’d been wondering what it would be like to kiss _Dean_ and he stayed that way, sweat prickling under his t-shirt, afraid to move and dying to run away, until dad busted through the door at two in the morning, drunk and sporting a new set of stitches on his forearm.

Sam hadn’t looked Dean in the face for the next week.

Over the next few years, Sam caught himself thinking these kinds of thoughts on a disturbingly regular basis. He pushed them away every time they surfaced, squished them down, shoved them into the back of his mind, and generally pretended they didn’t exist at all.

Except that only worked when he was someplace that Dean wasn’t, like school or the library or the motel room on a Friday night. Whenever Dean was there, humming off-key and throwing stuff around and generally making a nuisance of himself, those thoughts would shove right back into front and center.

So Sam gave up.

He gave up, and then he gave in. And one day in the early fall, he kissed his brother in their little motel kitchenette. It wasn’t some movie kiss, in the rain with swelling violins and passionate murmurs of love everlasting and all that stupid shit. For one thing, it was inside. And instead of dreamy eyes and tender caresses, there was a nasty right hook and a dent in the sheetrock from Sam's head and a ringing in his ears while he desperately tried to hold back the tears.

He didn’t have to do that for too long, since Dean set a new land speed record for the three-meter-dash to the door, and Sam let his head fall back against the base of the cabinets in defeat. He blinked up at the ceiling for a while, unfocused and far away, willing the broken pieces of his heart and his ego to pick themselves up and get it together. He lay there so long that the nubby carpet imprinted its texture onto his back, even through his shirt.

By the time he'd dragged himself onto his bed and listlessly opened his calculus textbook, it was early evening. The sky was washed out behind the black shadows of trees, and the dinky heater struggled to hold back the cold that crept along the floor and around the smeary glass. When he turned on the single lamp, he saw Dean’s only jacket slung across the back of a chair.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Sam is reading on the hood of the Impala, feet tucked up on the front fender, when Dean ambles out of the general store like he’s Clint Eastwood. Dad’s still inside, discussing the finer points of shotgun warfare with some old relic who was probably at the Alamo.

Dean stops three feet away, juggles a couple of packets in his hands and then tosses a crinkly bag of peanuts onto Sam’s open book.

“Here, eat up. Dad says we probably won’t stop for dinner later. Gotta make Yellow River by midnight.”

Sam looks up, fingers touching the edges of the bright blue and yellow packet. Dean isn’t looking at him, gaze fixed on the sky visible over the top of the store’s false front, eyes squinted against the sun. He’s leaning on the opposite corner of the hood, hands insouciantly stuffed in his pockets but body tilted carefully out of reach.

It’s been like this since Colorado, since Sam kissed Dean in some nameless motel and went to sleep with dry burning eyes and his heart in his throat. It’s been like this for nearly a month, and Sam wants to scream. He doesn’t even want Dean to kiss him back at this point, to reciprocate his feelings at all. He just wants Dean to be his brother again, to ruffle his hair while he bends engrossed over a book, to shove him out of the way at the sink so he can get his toothbrush, to half-nelson him in the narrow motel doorways and clap a hand on his back when he figures out the calculus problem set or finds some obscure monster factoid Dad's overlooked. He wants Dean to look him in the eyes again and smile like he’s competing with Texas in July.

John comes out, the screen door puffing up a cloud of dust and a protesting twang as he lets it bang shut.

“Let’s go, boys. Lotta driving to do.”

Dean doesn’t look at Sam, even as he passes close enough that Sam can just catch a whiff of sun-warmed leather. He gets in the front seat and puts on his sunglasses.

Sam looks out the window, mentally graphing the repeating sine curve of the telephone wires and counting the cows. He and Dean used to play a game like this, at least until Sam had spotted a field with about four hundred of the damn things and Dean had about fallen into the footwell laughing when Sam stalled on the numbers and just pointed desperately, grinning ear to ear and bouncing up and down. He’d finally gotten out, “Dean! Dean! _Cows!_ ” and Dean had promised him he’d won the game forever and ever. They hadn’t really played since, and that was about ten-twelve years back now, so Sam doesn’t know why he keeps careful count of the ones he sees now, even as the numbers creep into the triple digits and the sun starts to set, calling them home.

He counts and leans his head on the window, doesn’t look at the side view mirror to see Dean’s shielded gaze focused on the horizon ahead instead of Sam behind. He counts and squeezes his fingers between the pages of his neglected book.

Sunset turns into dusk, and Sam stays alert even as the stars come out, close enough to touch and achingly distant at the same time, the way they always look out west. He wiggles his fingers to restore blood flow, losing his place but not really caring anymore, and searches.

_One hundred and forty-six, Dean. Do I win?_

They exist in a horrible sort of stasis for the next several months.

They orbit around John, one-eighty shift from their past resentment of his eclipse on their little world of two, their own secret language of glances and nudges, their companionable solidarity. Sam used to like nothing more than to be left alone with Dean, even if Dean was up to his elbows in a rusted-out junker or sprawled on the cast-off couch watching _Matlock_ reruns in between naps. Dean didn’t seem to mind it either, paying lip service to the Herculean burden of making sure his younger brother didn’t set fire to the room or clamber up the nearest flagpole and give away all their secrets. But when dad had left, the growl of the Impala dissipating with his aura of overbearing command, then Dean would flick Sam’s forehead or smack his shoulder and smile.

They didn’t even need to talk, Dean sprawled on the bed, picking at the round cigarette holes in the fraying bedspread and watching _Time Cop_ for the fortieth time, while Sam surrounded himself with bent spiral notebooks and an armful of musty library books for his latest essay on Economic Policies in Post-Civil War America. Every so often, he’d look up from his indecipherable scrawl or the picture of some long-dead mutton-chopped general just to watch Dean smile or shift his legs, television glow casting shadows on the wall behind him. Sometimes he’d catch Dean looking at him, too, quick sideways glances of reassurance. It was comfortable, and Sam used to think sometimes - essay nearly finished, except for the concluding paragraph, which was just bullshit anyway; credits rolling on the movie, squished width-wise to fit an annoying over-bright commercial - that they didn’t need dad, they were fine on their own.

Now, though, Dean doesn’t like to be left alone with Sam. He goes out of his way to avoid it, spending more nights than ever in bars or who-knows-where, stumbling back into the room so late that even Sam is asleep. He follows dad around like a sheep dog, and John is impressed (maybe suspicious, but he never says) with his sudden enthusiasm for hunting - not that Dean has discovered a new fondness for killing monsters, but it used to be tempered by a concern for Sam which outweighed everything. No longer, and Dean and John rack up a considerable body count in the three months or so before it all goes to hell.

Sam has gotten reluctantly used to eating alone, falling asleep alone, sometimes even waking up alone. He keeps the television on almost constantly, grudgingly admitting that it’s one upside of their fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants lifestyle that he doesn’t have to worry about dad getting the electricity bill. He doesn’t even watch what’s on, which, depending on what backwoods town is currently experiencing a visit from Ripley’s Believe-It-Or-Not, ranges from low-budget local news shows, to religious programming, to reruns of every single sorry series ever produced between 1952 and 1990, to test patterns. He just likes the noise, the quiet background chatter that makes him feel less alone.

He is accustomed to days of silence (the longest was four days and he doesn’t like to think about it), to an orderly pile of textbooks undisturbed by greasy burger wrappers or a haphazard selection of knives, empty shotgun cartridges, and various protective amulets in various states of tarnish. The neat bed to his left is just another piece of furniture, and once he makes his own in the morning before school, you can’t even tell the difference.

He joins all of the after-school activities he can - physics club, mathletes, debate team. He wishes he could play sports, too, work himself into exhaustion and work out his anger and loneliness and fear without having to find an abandoned lot or an overgrown field where no one will hear the (illegal) gunshots. He wishes, but sports teams require a minimum GPA (no problem) and a full school year’s commitment (problem). Instead he meets in empty classrooms and practices rebuttals and opening statements, finding comfort in a world where problems can be solved with words and clever re-interpretations of law. It’s like research for a hunt, puzzles that have to be solved, material pulled from multiple sources and juggled to fit until he can step back and see it fit into place. It’s not like a hunt in that nobody is dying or about to die based on his answers.

Sam gets along, retreating into himself and now just counting the days until he can get out (one and a half years, seventeen and a half months, five hundred and thirty-nine days) and forget. Until he can get out and not have to see Dean every day, see him and hear him and smell him and ache and ache and ache for something he’ll never have, something he screwed up beyond repair, beyond even their standards. He gets along, and waits, keeping his soul in forced hibernation, until one day in late winter when it all goes to hell.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Sam is just dropping his backpack on the armchair when the phone rings.

He curses and moves to get it, forgetting that this chair has a wobbly leg and an annoying tendency to tilt wildly under any unevenly distributed weight. It does, of course, and Sam trips over the backpack that is suddenly dumped across his path, banging his elbow on the table as he grabs for the phone.

“Hello?”

It comes out with a grunt of pain, and he shoves himself to sitting and tucks the phone in between his shoulder and ear, rubbing his tingling elbow with his other hand.

To this day, he doesn’t remember what John says, but when he hangs up the phone he stares at the wall for a solid minute before heaving himself off the gritty carpet, bruised arm completely forgotten. He grabs his stuff (one backpack and one duffle, a life permanently to-go) and is waiting at the bus stop, shivering in the late afternoon chill, before it finally sinks in.

The bus driver looks askance at him when he gets on, but relaxes at the handful of wrinkled bills he shoves with shaking fingers into the Plexiglas box of fares. He finds a seat towards the back, and leans his head against the window, and prays, for the first time in years.

_Please, God, I know I shouldn’t be asking, but please. Please, let him be okay. If he’s okay I swear I will never do anything again to-- to mess it up again. Please, just-- please._

It’s dark before he realizes it, orange glow of streetlights waxing and waning across his window, Emergency Exit Only. He can’t see much beyond the reflection of the inside of the bus, his neighbor across the way slumped forward and breathing noisily into folded hands resting on a briefcase.

He’s still staring when he realizes that he’s crying, tear tracks shiny under the lights. He doesn’t know when he started, and he wastes a few minutes watching the tears leak out from some untapped reservoir deep inside; a bottomless well of pain. He just breathes and prays and waits for sunrise.

 ***

The hospital is very white. It makes Sam twitchy, makes him feel like a test subject or a interrogator’s victim. John doesn’t say much, just the barest details in the shortest syllables, at once not enough and far too much.

The words rattle around in his head, bold against the overwhelming brightness of Dean’s room. _Black dog, came out of nowhere, jumped in front of me._ He watches Dean’s chest rise and fall, watches the freckles that are vivid against his unnatural milk-white skin, his lips dry and cracked. There’s no one to tell him not to watch, so he does.

He watches (just him, dad’s not good with hospitals and the black dog is still out there, wounded now and therefore pissed) and thinks, and prays, and reasons, and bargains. He paces when he can’t sit still, drinks weak coffee from the vending machine down the hall, and thinks some more. He shies away from the thought that Dean might actually die, because he can’t. It’s not possible. This is _Dean_ , this is Sam’s _brother_ and his rock and the person that keeps him going and makes him want to give up all at the same time. If he actually were to--

Sam twitches, jerking his eyes away from the window, and watches Dean. He counts his breaths _one two three four_ and deliberately doesn’t think. _Fifty-one fifty-two fifty-three_ and evening comes, shadows stretching long. He switches to reciting all the Latin exorcisms he knows, and _ergo draco maledicte_ and the night shift comes on, nurse slipping in to check pulse and respiration and the stitches, black gashes on pale skin. Sam has to squeeze his nails into his palms to stop from yelling at her, from shoving her away. Sam can’t even touch Dean and he’s the closest thing Dean has, what gives her the _right_.

Morning dawns gray and solemn, and Sam hasn’t slept in nearly two days. He doesn’t notice.

***

It stays gray all day, drizzling on and off in fitful bursts. Dean wakes up just before lunchtime (gluey mashed potatoes and dried-out meatloaf with a side of red jello), which seems somehow appropriate. He coughs and blinks and wheezes, gazing muzzily up at Sam like he maybe recognizes him from somewhere long ago and far away. He’s got fading bruises on his throat and jaw that trail down below the edges of the hospital gown, three days’ worth of stubble, and a greasy sheen to his hair, which has been asymmetrically flattened by first responders with more concern over a steady pulse. Sam thinks he’s the most beautiful goddamn thing in the entire universe.

“Sam?”

It’s a croak, but Sam can hear the undertone of surprise and not a little uncertainty.

_You idiot. You fucking idiot._ But all he says is, “Yeah, it’s me.”

The sun comes out when Dean smiles back, split lip and all.

 ***

He has to recuperate afterwards, facing weeks spent cooped up and forbidden by dad to hunt until the stitches come out. He complains, and pleads, and reasons, and eventually lapses into sulking, but dad leaves anyway, room paid up for the entire week (a first, Sam thinks) and taking all the guns with him except for Dean’s pistol that he’s kept under his pillow since he was twelve, and the requisite shotgun for protection.

Sam is alternately elated and terrified.

Three days in, and he and Dean haven’t traded much other than how’s the pain and so what’d you get up to, saw those girls goin’ into your school when we left, tens all around, didja get any action. Dean watches endless episodes of _M*A*S*H_ and _Cops_ and _Seinfeld_ , adding a running commentary for Sam’s benefit. He refuses to eat the chicken soup Sam gets from the café down the street, refuses to let Sam help change the bandages on his side. But he flings Cheetos at Sam’s head, and invites him onto his bed to better watch the original _Halloween_ , the both of them elbowing each other (Sam careful of Dean’s injured side) and competing to see who can spot the most inaccuracies. It’s an old game but it doesn’t feel like it.

Four days in, and Dean finally brings it up.

It’s dark, past midnight, and Sam is trying to sleep but failing, watching the shadows of trees on the colorless wall, streetlight shining through the crack in the ill-fitting curtains.

He’s sure Dean is asleep; they’ve got him on some pretty heavy-duty painkillers, Vicodin and something else, something that Sam can’t pronounce but which knocks Dean out cold in about ten minutes. It makes Sam a little uncomfortable, seeing his brother like that, surrendering so easily to something so small.

He averts his eyes when Dean changes, when he takes the pills and swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing, when he eases himself into bed with his lips pressed tight against the pain, when he throws up quietly in the bathroom after too many laps around the parking lot, too many push ups, too much in a hurry to heal so that he can resume his interrupted orbit away from Sam.

Sam’s unfocused, teetering on the edge of sleep, when Dean speaks.

“’m sorry.”

Sam takes a second to organize his brain, groping sleepily for something that Dean should be apologizing for. He sounds drugged, slurring his words like he never does even when he’s plastered.

“For what?”

“You know.”

Sam doesn’t. He shifts in bed, punches the pillow under his head and turns over. Dean is a shadowed lump in the dark.

“For what? For almost dying? Yeah, you should be sorry, but I know you. You aren’t, not really.”

He sounds a little too aggressive, a little pissed off, even to himself. His brother’s got a martyr complex and Sam sometimes wishes he could just kill him and save himself the agony of waiting for something else to do it first.

“Not for that. For the other thing.”

Sam sits up, like that will help.

“What?”

He’s confused, his brain one big head-shaking shrug. _Don’t look at me, Sam. I got nothing._

“For punching you, you know. After. In Colorado.”

_Oh. That._ Sam sinks back down, cheeks flushing in the dark.

“You don’t have to apologize for that, Dean. I, um. You know. I kinda deserved it.”

“But you didn’. Wasn’ your fault. Was mine.”

Dean’s drifting, voice fading. Sam’s amazed he’s even coherent now, and doubts he’ll remember a word of this tomorrow. So he risks it.

“How was it your fault?”

The silence stretches long enough that Sam convinces himself that Dean finally succumbed to the meds and fell asleep. He flips back over the other side and curls around himself, trying to follow. Dean’s voice comes out of the dark, fainter now, and Sam’s eyes snap open.

“Supposed to look out for you. Protect you. From ever’thin’. Even me.”

Sam waits, heart pounding. Adrenaline is a gunshot, and there goes any chance he has of sleep tonight.

“Don’ know how you knew, but ‘m sorry. So sorry Sammy.”

He’s fading, last words barely decipherable, exhaled on a sigh, and then he falls over the edge into sleep, breath evening out. Sam is paralyzed, frozen, those words written bright on his heart, throbbing with every beat and expanding until he thinks they might burn through.

Somewhere in the tangled upheaval, he chokes on a breath and realizes, _Sammy, he called me Sammy_. First time since Colorado, and there’s a warm glow as his soul stretches and turns over, blinking in the sudden light.

He listens to Dean breathe, forces his own breaths to slow, and waits for morning.


	5. Chapter 5

Morning comes and goes, Dean still out cold. Sam fidgets, unwilling to leave him alone but slowly going stir-crazy in the closet-sized room. After reading the same two sentences for ten minutes straight, he chucks the book in the general direction of his backpack and falls backwards across the bed in surrender. He’s got a whopper of a headache, and of course they’re out of regular pain meds.

Sam rubs the back of his head against the edge of the bed and starts picking out shapes in the uneven brownish stains on the ceiling. He’s named all of them - Big Bird, Elvis, a wendigo - and moved on to the shadows cast by the bumpy spackling someone did back in 1973. He smiles to himself over one that looks like Lassie from those old washed-out movies he and Dean used to watch when they were left alone without anyone to tell them when bedtime was or that they shouldn’t eat corn chips and M&Ms for dinner.

The smile disappears, and Sam loses sight of the ceiling as he starts replaying _John’s Greatest Fatherly Hits, Vol. 1_. Leaving them alone that time in August when the fridge died and Dean had to walk four miles into town and smile, turn on the charm despite gritted teeth for the squishy Wonderbread loaf and the off-brand peanut butter that got them through the next three days. Leaving them with Uncle Bobby, or Pastor Jim, or Caleb for weeks at a time, saying _It’s too dangerous_ but Dean hearing _You’re not good enough_ and everything falling apart the day Dean finally got his hands on a shotgun and some old cans, abandoning Sam on the porch with the green-gray army men. Leaving them alone in a motel room over Christmas, stranded somewhere in Nebraska with no decorations other than the cheery TV specials, and no presents except for the ones Dean nicked from some house up the street.

Come to think of it (and Sam is very good at that), most of John’s worst moments are Dean’s best.

Dean chooses that moment to wake up.

“What time’s it?”

Sam startles (definitely not guiltily) out of his reverie, and sits up to see Dean twisted in the sheets and rubbing blearily at his eyes.

“Man, I hate these meds. Feels like a hangover except I didn’t get to have any fun.”

Sam smiles slightly, and watches as Dean scratches his cheek and yawns loud enough to crack his jaw. He clears his throat and wrestles his way out of the sheets, feet finding the floor, and Sam catches a wince as he straightens up, hand straying protectively to the bandages on his side.

Sam looks away.

“Hey. Earth to Sam, come in Sam.”

Dean’s standing over him, looking sleep-rumpled and soft around the edges, edible in a way that he should not look, not ever and definitely not to his brother. He also looks puzzled.

“You all right, man? You’re burning a hole in the carpet.”

Sam clears his throat, looks up carefully. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Okay.” Still looking suspicious, Dean wanders off to the bathroom.

Sam sits on the edge of the saggy mattress and listens to his brother pee and wash up, humming something off-key that Sam’s pretty sure the original artist couldn’t recognize. Dean splashes in the sink, and Sam can hear the swish of a razor, the dull clink of it against the ceramic; the rough scrape of the blade over stubble as his song stops and starts. Sam hears all this as if he’s there, since Dean hasn’t shut the door beyond a perfunctory shove as he passed it.

It’s the first time since Colorado, and Sam sits there and soaks up the normalcy of it. He yells into the bathroom

“It’s ten-thirty, you know. Getting lazy in your old age.”

He hears Dean spit and then snort, watches him stick his head around the door (toothbrush in hand and trailing white foam) to mock-glare.

“You’re the lazy one, smart-ass. You’ve been up for how long and haven’t gotten me breakfast? The hell, dude?”

Sam slams the door when he leaves, for show, but his grin has a mind of its own.

***

Dad comes back and Sam keeps expecting things to go back to what they were before. He’s not sure what (if anything) Dean remembers from that late-night game of true confessions, but something must have stuck somewhere, because Dean’s acting like Sam’s his little brother again and not some leper.

Of course, Sam remembers every single word, and sometimes when they’re driving, when it’s too dark to read and the music is too low to really focus on over the rumble of the engine, Sam will stare unseeing out into the night and replay the conversation. He’ll hoard the sudden flood of warmth in his stomach, unable to stop his smile.

Sometimes he watches Dean, watches him sharpen wooden stakes for the hunt or sit cross-legged as he relaces his boots. He watches, and hopes, and entertains wild delusions of what would happen if he just got right up and walked over there and shoved Dean onto the bed and kissed him. In some versions, Dean clocks him for real (because even in the throes of emotional turmoil, Sam could tell that Dean pulled his punch that one time), knocks him out cold and leaves, takes his jacket and his gun. Sometimes, Dean lets him do whatever; closes his eyes and lets Sam kiss him, grab him, mold their bodies to fit. Never does Dean kiss him back, because even Sam’s subconscious isn’t that stupidly delusional.

At least, until it is.

It’s an accident. Later, Sam will theorize (but only when he’s wasted, because _come on_ ) that this was the universe intervening on his behalf, settling its accumulated debt with a grand gesture. At the time, he’s got more important things on his mind. Like dying.

Dad is helping Caleb with a thought-form in Texas, and Sam and Dean are left alone to handle a routine salt-and-burn. They know who the spirit was (Great-Great-Grandpa pissed at his descendents for selling off his land to real estate developers) and where he’s buried (forgotten family plot two miles from the house, smack in the middle of the soon-to-be-demolished woods).

They get there, they dig the grave, they light it up, no problem. They’re on their way back to the car when something grabs Sam and hurls him into a tree.

Through the haze of pain, branches digging into his back and his nose bleeding, Sam hears Dean yell, "Sam!".

He feels something rake its fingers across his chest, grits his teeth against the cold needles of agony. He hears a shotgun blast, feels the impossible squeezing pressure abate. The tree can’t hold him, and he falls to the forest floor, roots and old leaves under his hands, pebbles biting into his knees unnoticed as he gasps for air.

Dean is right there, leaning one arm on the gun as he gets the other on Sam’s neck, feels for a pulse and exhales his relief.

“Sam? Sam? Sammy, you okay? C’mon, man, talk to me.”

Sam wheezes, one hand flailing in Dean’s general direction, but he knows Dean understands. _Yeah, yeah, fine_.

Dean drops his head and breathes out, harsh. “Son of a bitch.” He slides his thumb under Sam’s jaw, tips his head up and to the side, studying the nasty red scratches blooming there. Sam averts his eyes.

“Thought we got the fucker.”

Sam shakes his head, pushes a hand into the dirt and lets Dean haul him to his feet.

“Guess not. Must be attached to something in the house.” His voice feels raspy.

“Well, fuck.” Dean sighs, annoyed and tired but still on alert, shotgun deceptively casual at his side. He looks around, careful three-sixty, and apparently satisfied with the lack of sudden death, grips Sam’s forearm and tugs him towards the car.

“Let’s go. We’re gonna have to break into the house and that’s like two miles from here. I don’t wanna be jumping at every shadow on the way. We’ll take the car.”

Sam goes obediently, still working on getting his lungs to inflate properly, and so he doesn’t notice for a few moments that Dean is still touching him, palm warm through his shirt.

The hike back to the car is simultaneously the longest and the shortest he’s ever taken.


	6. Chapter 6

They pick the lock on the back door, crouched in semi-darkness on a sagging porch. Sam holds the light steady, one hand unconsciously tracing his wounded neck. He’s starting to sense a pattern here - evil thing ambushes him, evil thing goes for his neck. Sam thinks that the evil things have got a fetish.

Dean fiddles with the lock picks, and the door clicks open, exhaling inwards on a sigh. They step quickly, flashlight beams darting over the nearly-empty rooms, the sheeted furniture. He sends up a fervent prayer that whatever they’re looking for is both here and very obvious. He doesn’t want to have to play dress-up through the trunks in the attic, or try to weasel their way into the archives at the town hall, not when two people have died and he was nearly the third.

He’s aware that Dean has moved off, and can’t remember if he said something about it. Sam doubles back and finds him in a smallish room, obviously a study or a home office; it’s still got a huge carved desk, antebellum if Sam’s taking bets.

Dean steps around to the other side, rolling back the top and rifling through the numerous pigeonholes, holding the flashlight in his mouth and frowning in concentration. Sam flicks his own beam away, turns his back and exhales slow.

Dean’s muttering something around the metal handle, something about Gramps being a world-class hoarder, fucker has receipts from the 60s in here, and Sam is not really thinking of much when his flashlight beam catches on a framed picture.

It’s not a picture, on second glance. It’s a document, and as Sam walks closer, he can see it’s a yellowing calligraphied bill of sale, attesting that a Mr. William H. Pickett is now sole owner of 26.5 acres of land from the Hatfield Creek to the town center. It’s faded and lopsided in the frame, glue long since dried and brittle. It’s what they’re looking for.

“Hey. Hey, Dean. I think I got it.”

Dean grunts, leaving the drawer open as he steps behind Sam, their beams crossing and sending up a glare on the dusty glass.

“It’s the original certificate of ownership. He’s killing people for selling the land he worked so hard to buy, so what are the odds he’d be attached to a physical representation of it?”

Dean smiles. Sam can’t see him, but he knows it anyway. “Awesome. Let’s light it up.”

And that’s when the end of world shows up.

*** 

That’s what it feels like, anyway. One minute, Sam is reaching for the frame, ready to crack open the back and lift out the paper, and the next minute he’s up against the opposite wall with the desk crushing the bones in his pelvis.

Pain flares sharp and ugly, and mocking laughter echoes strangely as Dean yells for him. He hears a gunshot, feels the pressure ease as Dean banishes the ghost. He manages to shove the desk a couple inches away when the spirit materializes again, slams him to the ground, and sinks ghostly fingers into his neck.

“Sam! Sammy! Hang on!”

Empty eye sockets stare him down, broken teeth bared in a grin, and Sam can smell ozone and dust, tobacco smoke and death.

“Sammy!”

There is nothing he can do, pinned helpless, half under the two-ton desk and half under an avenging spirit. His vision narrows, black smudges dancing at the edges, and he feels ragged nails cut through his skin, feels the last shred of air leave his lungs.

“ _Sam!_ ”

The smudges spread, eclipse everything, and his arms go unwillingly limp. There is a ringing in his ears, a ringing that swells and roars and finally explodes.

“ _SAM!_ ”

***

Dark.

Quiet.

He’s floating, somewhere out in space, and the stars wheel around him, close enough to touch but still so achingly far. He closes his eyes, tumbles head over heels into the cold.

_Sammy_.

***

“Sam.”

“Sammy.”

“Sammy, come on. Talk to me.”

Sam wakes with a jerk, falling back into his body. He opens his eyes and winces immediately, blinding light leaving spots behind.

“Sam?”

That’s Dean, Dean is there, with a flashlight and a worried voice. Sam manages to nod his head (he thinks), manages to open his mouth, push out a thread of sound.

“ ‘m okay.”

He feels Dean relax, feels his muscles unwind, hears him put the flashlight down. He feels fingers on his face, warm and calloused, smelling of lighter fluid and carbon. He turns towards them, lets them touch his face, forehead, neck in gentle succession, a reassurance for Dean more than him.

That’s when he realizes he’s pillowed on Dean’s lap, head against scratchy denim.

He sits up, uncoordinated jerk, and Dean jumps. “Sam? You okay?” He scrambles closer, on his knees, still refusing to leave Sam alone.

Sam squeezes his eyes shut against the sudden throbbing in his temples, brings a hand up to grip the bridge of his nose. Dean’s hands are there immediately, pulling his away and cupping his cheeks. He needs to get away, needs to get away now.

“Sam?”

He clears his throat. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?” Healthy skepticism, and can Sam honestly blame him? He smiles, just a bit, tiny upquirk of his lips, and raises his eyes to Dean’s.

And stops breathing. Again.

Dean is looking at him, really looking, eyes wide and glittering in the concentrated light. There is concern, and fear, and annoyance, and relief, but most of all-- Most of all, there is--

_Fuck._

Sam’s caught, caught hard and fast, held down with nothing but a shared glance, and he knows his face is as open as his brother’s, knows Dean can read everything there that he has tried so hard to hide.

He breathes out, breathes his brother’s name.

Dean is frozen, hands still on Sam’s face, still warm against his skin, and Sam raises his own, runs one down along the curve of Dean’s neck, and pulls.

Dean hesitates for half a second, Sam feels it even though he can’t see, his eyes closed like a prayer. And then he feels the warmth of Dean’s breath on his face, his lips. Dean rests their foreheads together, swallows harshly. He pulls in a breath more like a gasp, and lets it out.

“Sammy. I can’t--”

And Sam knows, Dean can’t do this, can’t cross this line, can’t burn this bridge. But he can.

And he does.

Just a touch, soft brush, and Sam tightens his grip, feels his thumb sink into the softness under Dean’s jaw, feels the noise he makes as a vibration through his fingertips. He pushes closer, harder, and Dean opens under him.

It’s actually a little ridiculous, if he thinks about it, a surreal ending to another day spent nearly dying. Twice. The room's trashed; glass and ash everywhere, wood splinters digging into Sam's leg, and every inhale is smoke-scented.

It's also a little like the best goddamn day of his life.


	7. Chapter 7

Dean will kiss him willingly enough. He’ll wind his fingers in Sam’s hair, get his hands on Sam’s neck and jaw; nibble and suck and lick and generally do his best to completely unhinge them both. But that’s it.

Sam starts resorting to increasingly drastic measures.

He ambushes Dean out back of a gas station when he’s supposed to be taking a piss and Dean’s supposed to be filling the extra water jugs from the cracked plastic hose.

They’re in the middle of nowhere; half a hundred square feet of bleached pavement and then weedy grass, flattened by sun and dust, running out to the edge where the sky comes down like a curtain. There are some kind of chirpy bugs, cicadas or katydids or grasshoppers, and occasionally a hot puff of air stirs the seed heads, but that's it. Dad's out front filling the tank, and the proprietor is napping in front of a tiny plastic fan inside, sweaty foreheard propped on his hand.  They might as well be the last ones standing.

Sam sneaks up, gets his hands on Dean’s shoulders and his mouth on Dean’s lips before he can protest, feeling heated scratchy fabric under his palms, the catch of breath in Dean’s chest. Dean gives in and kisses him back, shoves him into the gritty brick wall and slides his thumbs under a sharp jaw line.

The water runs onto the pavement, soaking the dandelions and milkweed pushing through the cracks, and Sam breathes, giddy with the scent of sun-warmed cotton and sweat, of dry earth and fresh cold water and arousal. He pushes back, tips his head until they fit, and slides his hands up under Dean’s t-shirt.

And scene. He is left blinking and disoriented, Dean somehow six feet away and tidying up the hose, collecting the most of the jugs and yelling over his shoulder, “Get a move on, Sam-may! Summer vacation doesn’t mean shit with this job, you know.”

Sam pushes off the wall slowly, picks up the solitary can and feels the handle wet with water already warming in the sun. He licks his lips and tastes Dean, follows the snaking trails of water as they run haphazard here and there, moving fast but soaking into the cracks anyway.

He trudges back to the car, where Dean is helping dad load the last of the supplies in the trunk, and wonders if this is worse than what it was before.

*** 

Everyone at school says Sam is smart.

His lab partner for senior year physics kind of just lets him do all the work, slouched on the stool and twiddling a stubby pencil while Sam measures and calibrates and scratches data points in a bent notebook. He finishes six page essays in study hall, falls asleep in calculus after a particularly vicious hunt, and still manages to break the curve. He’s had more than one teacher ask him about college in that way that’s not really asking, and when he showed up for the mandatory appointment with his guidance counselor, she steered him away from the usual local schools and made him send out applications for Harvard and Stanford and UPenn.

Sam knows he is smart; he can see connections and patterns, and he likes solving puzzles, likes twisting things around and fitting them together a new way. He likes to argue, likes to lay out facts and words like mines, watch his opponent stumble over his arguments and right into Sam’s traps. He likes math, and science, and literature. He read _Hamlet_ in sixth grade, _East of Eden_ in ninth. He found a discarded algebra book in a second-hand shop once and taught it to himself over summer break when he was twelve.

He is really smart, goddammit.

Smarter than Dean, definitely, so why is it so fucking hard to figure out a way to get Dean to do what he wants?

Sam stews for a few days; a few days, and a few more kisses, hot and wet and leaving him aching and unfulfilled. He bites his tongue and squeezes his nails into his palms and tries to talk himself out of just pinning Dean to the bed and _making_ him see.

Then he gets the idea to treat it like a school project. Outline, research, result. Easy.

First point: Dean is Freaking Out. Of course, he’s trying to play it cool, trying to act like this is just another thing they do, just another check box in the Winchester/Other category, but it’s not. It's very much not, even for them.  
  
Second point: Sam is freaking out about how much he isn’t freaking out. This should be weird as hell; somewhere between evil clowns and that one creepy uncle everyone has, but it isn’t. It feels right, and, fuck, just _normal_ , and Sam can’t think about that for too long before he starts feeling the urge to scratch his way right through his skin.  
  
Third point: Sam wants Dean to stop freaking out, because the freaking out only makes him guilty and Sam frustrated, and they end up keeping a careful distance between them, like Dean doesn’t trust Sam not to suddenly come to his senses and throw a punch, and Sam doesn’t trust himself not to just _take_.  
  
Fourth point: this is like the plot of one of those really bad trashy grocery store romance novels, where the two attractive people are mutually in lust but cannot, for whatever stupid-ass reason, get it on, and the reader gets metaphorical blue balls just from the seven different types of cockblocking happening only a hundred pages in.  
  
Fifth point: Sam does not want his life to become a romance novel, because that is possibly the only thing worse than what he’s got now.  
  
Sixth point: God, he is so fucking horny.  
  
He shakes his head and goes for a run, cuts through the swamp near the school and out past the fields. He runs until his lungs burn, until metal coats his tongue and his vision swims, darkening in the increasing twilight and the lack of proper oxygen.

He runs until he’s so exhausted he practically hobbles back to the room on trembling legs, sweat-soaked hair sticking to his neck and bangs matted down.

He’ll fall asleep right away, no problem.

Until he rounds the side of the building and sees Dean there, spotlighted in an ugly halogen glow, wearing the jeans that dad says are unseemly and a t-shirt that is worn thin and clinging. He’s got a smudge of grease on his jaw, lips wet from the beer bottle perched on the concrete curb to his left. He’s humming along to the radio, some country-western twang.

Sam freezes in place, swaying a little on his screaming legs. Dean looks up then, catches his gaze across twelve feet of pavement and a socket wrench. Sam can see his mouth open slightly, even in the dark, can see his knuckles tighten on the edge of the hood.

Sam runs, slams the door behind him. _Fuck._

He’s gonna kill his brother.


	8. Chapter 8

In the end, he caves. Asks for help.

His desk mate in homeroom is one of those perpetually cheerful mothering types. The very first day he’d been there, slouched in the seat so he’d seem normal-sized and nursing the granddaddy of pissed-off scowls (this made two schools in his senior year, which was twice what dad had promised and it was still September), she’d dropped into her chair, turned to face him, and chirped, “I’m Lauren. Nice to meet you.”

He’d shaken her hand and grunted, “Sam”, because for all that she was five feet tall, with glasses that weighed more than she did, she’d looked like she could take him.

She never stopped trying to draw him out, inviting him to her lunch table with Austin, the kid who looked like he should wear pocket protectors but didn’t, and Gail, the chubby redhead who knew more about theoretical calculus than the department head. She’d helped him navigate the tangled politics of the school; who was popular, who was on the outs, who was rumored to be sleeping with whom. He’d come to like her, to appreciate her warm smile and kind eyes, the way she could listen to you and really hear, like there was nothing more important than what you were saying in that moment. Coming from the family he did, that was the most welcome kind of culture shock.

Now he needs advice.

Under cover of the usual homeroom chatter, Sam asked her. “Lauren? Can I ask you something?”

She turned to him, leaving off scribbling in her agenda. “Fire away.”

He kept his gaze on the desktop, marked with a pencil caricature of their teacher, and stumbled over the words he’d practiced all the way to school.

“Um, so, I, uh, I think I like this-- this girl, but she won’t, um. She doesn’t-- ”

“She doesn’t like you back?” Gentle words, understanding. He could picture her eyebrows tilting up, eyes swimming with sympathy.

“No, it’s not that. She likes me, I mean, she hasn’t said so, but, uh, we uh. We’ve gone out a few times and, you know.” He waves a hand. “I just don’t know how to-- How to show her I want--” The words sputter, and he closes his eyes. “Damn.”

Lauren puts a hand on his arm, fingers like little twigs, and he marvels at how fragile she seems, how easily she could break. “Sam, are you asking how to get a girl to put out?”

“What? No! No, I just.” He gives up, knowing he’s already as red as her binder, and just goes for it. She’s got an incredible bullshit detector anyway. “Yeah.”

He risks a glance, sees her eyebrows raised clear to the roof, and nearly trips over himself trying to explain. “But not like that! Like, we were friends, and then it-- it changed, and I think she’s afraid of messing up what we had, but I want her to know it’s okay.”

He looks up, pleading. “I want her to know it won’t change anything.”

Lauren smiles, soft. “So tell her that.”

He shakes his head. Snorts. “I can’t. She doesn’t-- She’s not really a ‘sharing and caring’ type of person.”

“So show her. Sometimes people aren’t good with words, so telling them won’t do a thing. Sometimes you have to meet them halfway.”

He stares.

“You’re a genius.”

She smiles again, a little sadly this time, at the awe in his voice. She squeezes his arm once before taking her hand back, picking up the pencil and resuming whatever list he’d interrupted. “No, just a girl with common sense.”

The bell rings, and Sam bolts out of class, eager for once to get the day over with. He doesn’t notice Lauren’s not with him as usual, that she’s still behind at her desk, staring unseeing at the words she’d been writing.

***

Sam waits until he gets Dean alone. It’s easy, with dad gone so much and unwilling to take Dean all the time, not after that thing with the black dog and then the other thing with the ghost that they didn’t tell him about, but it didn’t really need telling, not with the bruises on Sam’s neck doing it for them.

And once he gets Dean alone, he waits some more. Waits until dinner’s been eaten and (mostly) digested, until Dean’s had a beer and is sprawled out on the concrete square masquerading as a patio, limp with heat and gritty from his hours in the garage.

He waits until the stars come out, glimmering through the hazy air, until the frogs in the distant swamps are deafening.

The beer is cold in his hand, beads of water rolling down and dotting the floor. He sets it next to Dean’s head with a clink, like a peace offering.

Dean cracks an eye. “You brought me a beer?”

Sam rolls his eyes, folds his legs under himself and sits (not too close). “Yeah.” Like he brings beer all the time.

Dean props himself on an elbow, studies Sam’s profile with narrowed eyes. “What’s going on.”

It says so much about their relationship that they follow each other unhesitatingly into dark alleys and worse, that Dean bails on dates with hot twenty-something bartenders and Sam ditches SAT prep to hang out; that they stitch up cuts and reset shoulders and wear each other’s blood like they’re comfortable in it; they punch and kick and smile, yell and joke and bicker, slam each other into walls and kiss until they can’t breathe; that Dean still stops him from crossing the street into traffic and he still gives Dean the prize from the cereal boxes, that they live and breathe the same air, wear the same clothes, and yet this is what makes Dean do a double take.

Sam laughs, tips his head back and really laughs, feels the shadow over his heart lift, because it doesn’t matter. He laughs like he hasn’t since he was a kid.

Dean is looking at him like he’s possibly insane, or possessed. “Sam? You okay?”

Sam can’t answer, helpless with laughter, and Dean asks again, “What’s so funny?”, caught somewhere between annoyance and concern.

Sam drops his forehead to his knees, rubs the skin into the denim, still smiling. “You are. It’s just, you’re always so suspicious. It’s a beer, Dean. Nothing’s wrong. I’m giving you a beer. Why can’t you just take it?”

There is a moment of utter stillness.

Sam lifts his head, looks Dean in the face. Softer now, no laughter. “I want you to have it.”

“Sam--”

He’s cut off before he can complete his sentence, his passable imitation of John’s do-not- _fuck_ -with-me voice falling on deaf ears, because that voice only ever worked on Dean anyway.

Sam swings around, straddles his brother’s hips and pushes him into the ground before either of them realize what’s going on. There’s a moment where Dean looks confused and wary, and Sam looks confused and determined.

He lowers his face to Dean’s, feels Dean wrap his hands around Sam’s wrists. “I want this.”

He kisses Dean, slides their lips together, tasting beer and salt, tasting Dean. He feels the moment Dean gives in, the moment he loosens his grip on Sam’s wrists and winds his fingers in Sam’s hair instead. _I want this_ , Sam tells him with every lick, every nibble. _I want you_.

Dean answers, pulls him down and meets him halfway, hands all over, skating on the outside of his clothes, and Sam makes a promise to himself that sometime soon he’s gonna strip them both down and enjoy this. He wants, he wants-- But he can’t think about that now. _Don’t think._ So he focuses on Dean, underneath him, around him, his lips, his hands, his heartbeat.

And when the pressure builds, hot and heavy and unavoidable, when he thinks he might explode, Dean reaches around, wraps his arm around Sam and notches them together with his leg. They find a rhythm, a little awkward at first, the bite of the concrete through denim slowing them up, but Dean arches up, slides his hand under the thin cotton of Sam’s shirt, skin on overheated skin for the first time, and Sam hears him answer. _I know._

They rock together, tangle of lips and hands and legs, fully clothed but all the more intimate for it. Sam pulls back, breathes unsteady into Dean’s mouth, arms trembling as they struggle to support him. He’s close, and he can tell Dean is, too, flush spreading across his cheekbones and hips thrusting sharply.

Dean gets a hand on Sam’s face, swipes a thumb across his lips, follows it with his tongue. Sam moans, throws his head back and comes, hard. Feels Dean follow, distant.

He collapses and breathes and tries to tell himself that this is it, this is okay. 


	9. Chapter 9

Dad shows up the next morning, stomping in with his boots and his weighty authority, flinging his jacket on the chair, his bag on the table. Filling the room up with his smell of gunpowder and Old Spice, road dust and sweat.

He smacks Dean’s foot, bare and outside of the covers in deference to the heat.

“Dean. Come on, get up. Help me with this.”

Dean blinks and grunts and staggers out of bed, sleep-mussed hair and a white t-shirt, and Sam has to close his eyes.

He drags himself out of bed once Dean is seated at the table, busy cleaning guns with that little line between his eyebrows that’ll be permanent one day. He sights down the barrel of a shotgun, nails rimmed with black, and catches Sam’s eye.

“Morning, Sam.” Casual, like any morning in any state, but Sam can see something veiled behind his eyes, something that flickers bright and hot before it’s gone.

“Hey, dad.” His own voice is rough with sleep. John grunts unintelligibly, papers sprawled around him, making follow-up notes in the journal.

Sam washes up, gets ready for school, and leaves, closing the door on Dean and John, huddled together over the table now buried under newspaper clippings and torn-out pages from various types of hotel stationary. Dean lifts a hand in farewell; John doesn’t even notice.

Lauren is absent in homeroom, unusual. Sam feels a flare of disappointment; he’d wanted to thank her for her help.

***

Dean leaves with dad the next day on a hunting trip in the next state.

Sam doesn’t even get to say a real goodbye, since dad is in and out of the room all day, packing supplies and taking inventory, muttering about curses and amulets and rations.

The closest he gets is a stolen moment; dad outside with a map spread on the hood of the car and the sunlight making him squint. Dean’s standing at the too-small table, shoving the last of his clothes into his duffel. He speaks, quiet, to the stubborn zipper on the top.

“I asked if you could stay here, instead of coming with us. Said it was your last year of school.”

Sam is surprised. He didn’t think Dean cared about stuff like that. “You did?”

“Yeah.” Dean snorts, like he’s surprised too, rubbing the back of his neck.

Sam ventures, “How did he take it?”

“Well, you’re staying, aren’t you?” There is an edge, just audible, and Sam wonders what Dean said or didn’t say, what John said in response, and what his brother had to give up to get this for him.

“Dean.” He stands up from the unmade bed, crosses to the table, stands next to Dean, an inch and a mile away. A hot breeze sneaks in from the open door, and Dean turns his head to look outside, where John is now folding the map, frowning at the ridiculous origami of it.

He turns to Sam, reaches to touch him, but stops. “Sam, be careful, okay?”

And then John calls, “Dean, let’s go!”

And he goes, quicksilver smile for Sam and a wink. Sam stands in the doorway and watches them drive away, wonders when they’ll be back and whether dad will leave again soon enough for him. Whether he can hold himself together long enough to keep from giving everything away.

He closes the door and goes to his backpack to dig out his history homework.

***

Sam is asleep when Dean comes in.

The closing of the door startles him into wakefulness. He sits up, heart thumping with the adrenaline dump. “Dean?”

He watches a shadow cross the room, hears the rustle of fabric, the thud of boots hastily toed off. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“Where’s dad?” There’s something in the air, something charged, humid late-summer early-autumn storm threatening. It’s been brewing all day, bruised clouds to the southwest as Sam trudged home over shimmering pavement. He fell asleep around one to the uneven rumbles of thunder far away.

“Out.” Dean strips his shirt, Sam can see the yellow streetlight play across his ribs, the shadow where his spine dips between the muscled ridges of his back. “He went to a bar. We’ve got some time.”

The adrenaline flood shifts gears, low growl speeding up his heartbeat again, but for a different reason. Thunder rumbles, closer, and lightning flashes unexpected.

It lights up the room, lights up Dean, standing over Sam, and Sam can see a bruise on his chest, what looks like a claw mark down his side.

“You okay?” He’s concerned, can’t see Dean’s face in the darkness.

“Yeah. ‘m fine.” There’s something wrong, something off, and it’s on the tip of Sam’s tongue to ask, he rises up on one elbow, but then Dean is on him, crushing him into the polyester bedspread and kissing him senseless.

There’s no preamble, none of the gentle playfulness that Sam’s used to. Dean shoves his tongue past Sam’s lips, kisses like he’s fighting, like he’s desperate. He pushes Sam back down when he tries to wrap his arms around Dean’s neck, pins them to the bed and bites Sam’s lower lip.

Sam chokes on a moan, body rising involuntarily, legs wrapping around Dean’s hips. He can feel his own arousal, like a switch flipped, burning through the thin cotton of his shorts, and then Dean shifts, and he’s as hard as Sam, hot against his stomach. He licks at Sam’s neck, bites down over his collarbone and chest, already slick with sweat.

Lightning strikes, closer this time, and Sam gets a snapshot of the room, of Dean, eyes closed and breathing heavy, hands stroking over Sam’s body like he wants to memorize it, arms, shoulders, chest, hips.

“Dean-- Dean, what’s wrong?” The words are stolen in a clap of thunder, and then Dean slides back up and attacks his mouth again. Sam tastes blood.

He tears his mouth away, gasping sideways into the scratchy pillow, fear fighting with the arousal in his blood. “Dean?”

Dean’s hands stroke lower, tracing his ribs, his hipbones, and then Dean grabs his shorts and yanks them down, making Sam hiss with the friction burn. He reaches out, catches Dean’s wrist in the next split-second of illumination, about to make him stop (despite himself), about to turn on the light, demand answers, start throwing punches if necessary.

Dean presses that hand to Sam’s belly, his hip, and Sam can feel his own skin, running with sweat and burning from the inside. Then Dean slides his other hand over Sam’s stomach, lower, and the muscles quiver underneath. He doesn’t even hesitate before he wraps it around Sam, thumb catching at the crown, sliding through the precome already gathered there. Sam flings his head back into the pillow, helpless and beyond the point of protest, struggling to remember how to breathe.

No one has ever touched him like this; he’s had a couple dates with girls, some innocent kisses and then some not-so-innocent ones; some full-on makeout sessions under the bleachers or in frilly bedrooms, golden afternoon sunlight and an empty house. He’s gotten to second base, maybe (not quite sure of the exact definition of these things, and he’s never liked baseball anyway); fumblings under clothes but over underwear. One of the girls (Amanda, blonde hair and green eyes, soccer star with the legs to prove it) even returned the favor, tentatively curling her fingers around his denim-clad erection as she kissed him, cherry chapstick and bubblegum.

But no one has ever touched him like this. Like they know him, like they want him, like they own him.

The world fractures, broken up by the intermittent lightning and the jolts of electric sensation. Sam bites his hand to muffle his cries, flings his other arm up to scrabble for the headboard. This is no different than what he’s done to himself hundreds of times, no different than his own hands, but somehow it is. Dean’s fingers are shorter than his, but thicker; rough with calluses but still gentle. He works Sam like he knows, like he’s done this before, and that thought makes Sam’s stomach twist, makes him burn with jealousy sudden and violent.

The skies open up, rain pummeling the pavement, spitting in through the open window (broken air conditioning, of course). Thunder crashes so loud Sam goes momentarily deaf, blind from the preceding lightning. Dean doesn’t let up, long firm strokes that gradually increase in speed. Sam releases the headboard and grabs Dean’s shoulder, tries to warn him, but Dean leans forward and kisses him instead, licks his mouth and whispers against it, rough and low, “Come on, Sammy. Give it to me. Come on.”

“ _Fuck_.” Sam gasps the word, muscles taut and bowed as he obliges, thighs trembling around Dean’s hips.

Sam lets himself go, lets his head drop back, feels Dean still pressing kisses into his neck, feels his hand still working him through the aftershocks, gentle. Another flash, and Sam opens his eyes. He can feel Dean still hard against his thigh, and he tries to reach down, a little clumsily, tries to give back. This time it’s Dean who catches his wrist, who links their palms together and keeps Sam pinned as he takes care of himself, hips thrusting as the mess on Sam’s belly eases the way.

He comes, hard, shuddering, buries his head in Sam’s shoulder.

The rain has eased, steady pitter-pattering, and the storm moves on. Thunder rumbles low, no longer threatening, and Sam can feel Dean shaking.

They’re stuck together with sweat (and other things), legs entwined and hands still joined. Sam waits it out.

“Don’t you ever leave, you hear me?” The words are savage, desperate, muffled against Sam’s neck, his damp curling hair.

“Dean--”

“Promise me, Sam. Because I swear to god, if you leave--”

Sam works an arm free, gets his hand in Dean’s hair and presses it into his shoulder, presses them together. His fingers clench involuntarily in the strands. “I promise.”

Dean pulls away after a second, pulls back to study his face, and in the dark Sam’s unsure of what he’s looking for, of what he’s seeing. Then he relaxes, and sighs. Rolls away and covers his face with his arm.

Sam stares into the darkness, and wonders.


	10. Chapter 10

Morning dawns clear and bright, last of the lingering humidity rinsed away with the storm. The air is crisp and cool, autumn weather.

Dean’s not in the room when he wakes; neither is dad. There’s a note from the former on the table, _Went to get breakfast_ , and no Impala in their parking slot, so Sam figures dad found a bed elsewhere. He showers and dresses, digging for his favorite hoodie, the brown one. Dean comes back while he’s searching for his physics notebook.

“Hey.” Sam’s got his head under the bed, eyeing dust balls big enough for an exorcism, and he hears Dean put something down, presumably coffee and a crinkly bag of breakfast.

He pulls his head out and turns around. Dean looks like shit; sunlight highlighting the bags under his eyes, and the bruises which Sam can see extend up to his jaw. His knuckles are skinned, raw and angry looking, and he’s favoring his left side (the side with the scratches), wearing more layers than the weather calls for, and looser than he usually goes for.

“Hey.” Sam stands, but doesn’t move forward. He’s not sure what is going on here.

Dean turns away.

“I gotta go. Gonna be late for work.”

Sam had almost forgotten about Dean’s gig down at the local garage.

“I’d give you a ride but dad’s got the car.”

Sam feels like things are moving too fast, despite the fact that both he and Dean have been standing still. It feels like something got decided, something big, and he doesn’t know about it.

He finds his voice, finally. “Dean, what the hell happened last night?”

Predictably, Dean doesn’t answer, just straightens and heads for the door. He pauses, hand on the knob, and speaks to Sam without looking back. “I’ll pick up dinner for later.”

Sam watches him leave, soundlessly.

***

Dad comes back ten minutes after Sam walks in the door from the bus stop.

He’s unshaved and rumpled, smelling like a barroom bathroom and bleary-eyed, even at two in the afternoon. Sam stands up, goes to help, and gets waved away.

“Dad? Are you hurt?”

John sighs, grinding the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “No, Sam. I’m fine.”

Sam remains standing, fidgeting a little. When John doesn’t move from the other bed, head sagging into his hands, he clears his throat and takes the plunge.

“What happened?”

John heaves to his feet, weariness in every movement, and heads for the shower. Sam thins his lips, concern warring with frustration. _Two strikes and you’re out._ But then John speaks, facing the bathroom door, words barely loud enough to make it across the space between them.

“Witch. Didn’t die easy, and right before she managed to say a couple things that Dean really took to heart.” He sounds like he’s trying to make a molehill out of a mountain.

Sam’s throat is suddenly dry, his heartbeat loud enough to hear. “What did she say?”

John reaches for the doorknob, then drops his hand again.

“Dad? What did she say?”

He lets the words go, softly, without inflection. Which is maybe worse. “She asked if he knew what was coming. Asked if he knew what he was doing, what he would have to do.  The choice he would have to make.” He straightens, nervous right hand flex and release.

The words don’t even make sense, but they are ice in Sam’s veins nonetheless. He prays that his dad doesn’t turn around, doesn’t see his face. “What-- What does it mean?”

John shrugs tiredly. “No idea. She was a witch, Sam. Evil. They say stupid shit like that all the time.”

He goes into the bathroom, shuts the door, and lock click is a gunshot.

Sam makes it out the door practically before the echoes fade.

***

The garage is only a few blocks away, low brick building worn around the edges. This is the run-down side of town, not necessarily bad, just tired. The houses crowd close, leaning on each other sometimes; three-story Victorians from another era that have been divided up into two- or three-family dwellings. The sidewalks are narrow and broken with tree roots; there are more pawn shops and liquor stores than bookstores or cafes.

Sam passes a cluster of kids playing kickball in the street. Their laughs are the laughs of kids anywhere; they could be here or in California or Canada or Cambodia. Kids are always the same, and he swallows down around a sudden lump in his throat.

The garage is quiet; shrill hum of a power drill warring with a radio turned down low. Dean’s boss says he left an hour ago, promised he’d be in earlier the next day.

He looks askance at Sam, studying his face for who-knows-what, worrying a bent toothpick between yellowed teeth.

Sam leaves quickly, barely glancing at the glossies on the wall behind his desk, girls and cars and beer. Dean would fit right in here, with this mountain of a man still stuck in the 1950s. He wonders if they shared a cold one when the day was hot and quiet, if they talked about their women, their drunken adventures. Sam doesn’t fit here, in this world of grease and metal and antiquated manliness. Never has.

So he leaves, feet dragging through leaves knocked down by the storm last night, and goes to look for Dean elsewhere.

***

It says a lot about their relationship that Dean is in the second place Sam looks.

There’s an abandoned aqueduct outside of town, built in the 20s as some sort of public works shindig. It’s high up, cuts through the hills north of the outskirts, an easily defensible position. Dean’s perched on the top, legs dangling off the side.

Sam wavers for a second, and then gives up and sits down next to him. The space between them feels like it never does, like four years and four hundred hunts across a thousand miles. It opens a hole in his chest; a bottomless ache for something that’s always been there but is suddenly and unexpectedly missing, and Sam digs his nails into the gritty concrete.

He fixes his eyes straight ahead (don’t look, don’t jinx it) and wets his lips twice before he gets up the nerve to speak.

“Dad said-- He, uh, he said about the witch and, uh--”

Dean twitches, almost imperceptibly, and Sam drops his head and clears his throat. Closes his eyes.

“I’m not leaving, okay? I don’t-- You don’t--” He sighs. For all Dean complains up and down about Samantha and emo-chick-flick moments and all the touchy-feely girly shit that Sam apparently emanates like some sparkly aura, Sam is just as clueless about this stuff as his brother.

A sudden image of Lauren fills his mind, and he wishes he could ask her what the hell to say.

“I’m not leaving.”

That’s all he’s got, and he doesn’t know if it’s good enough, but it has to be. It’s all he’s got.

It hurts, and he can’t fix it, because Dean is the one who fixes things like this, things like cars and guns and Christmas and that flat empty look in Dad’s eyes. He has to fix this by himself, not because Sam is lazy or uninvested or unwilling, but because this is something Dean has to do. Sam finds the broken things, Dean fixes them. Sometimes Sam is the broken thing.

So he sits and stares out at the town, the tiny square houses and the bug-speck people, admires the symmetry to the streets that isn’t apparent from down below, the neat patches of lawn. Everything looks clean from up here, everything orderly, and the bad side of town is the same as the good.

He sits, and thinks, while the sun sinks golden into the hills, setting fire to the buildings below. He sits, and stays, promising _not leaving_ with every stationary minute. He sits, and thinks, and feels the distance between them lessening with every second.

And when Dean stands up, cracks his back, and sighs, Sam scrambles to his feet too. They walk home slow, footsteps scuffing unevenly, a wordless conversation, and Sam knows Dean understands every bit of it.

He sidesteps a particularly obnoxious tree root bulge in the sidewalk, and thinks again that Lauren is a genius. 


	11. Chapter 11

They leave town on a Tuesday, most of the way through October. Sam doesn’t get to say goodbye to Lauren; Dad shows up after midnight with news of a big hunt in Michigan, and they’re out the door six hours later.

Sam hates and loves their time spent in the car; hates it because he can’t stand being inactive for such long periods, all folded over on himself and cramped in the backseat with the wind tunnel generated from the open front windows and the endless cycle of music he knows by heart.

_I ain’t joking, woman, I got to ramble…_

Zeppelin changes to Black Sabbath when the sun goes down and John makes no sign of stopping for the night. He drives the way he does everything, intent and serious; hands at ten and two, shoulders never even dropping into parade rest.

Watching him, Sam wonders where Dean learned how to drive, how to hitch his left leg up and improvise drum solos on it during long empty stretches of road, to slide his right arm across the seat back and steer with two fingers and a grin, eyes on the road only long enough to gauge the length of the straightaway, cool and cocky behind sunglasses nicked from a convenience store six months ago. It’s kind of like everything they do, everything they learn, where Dean takes it in and spits it out reformed, made over in his own image. He bends the rules a little around himself and himself around the rules, coming out with some strange hybrid that seems to work for him. Sam is suddenly envious, wishes he could bend like Dean; bend and not break. Fighting everything all the time is so fucking exhausting.

_And as we walk through golden halls, we get to keep the gold that falls…_

Sam jerks awake in a gas station. He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

The car is quiet, engine cooling with muted clicks and pings. The yellow sodium lights turn everything sickly gray, and it takes a moment to orient himself. His neck is stiff from leaning on the window.

Dean is outside, watching the numbers flip over on the pump. Dad is inside the squat brick store, a silhouette through the smeared glass. Sam gets out of the car, the creaking hinges making him wince. He stretches, arms legs neck, and then settles next to Dean. The numbers change, 8.15, 8.16, 8.17, and the cold metal seeps through his layers.

It’s colder up here, chasing the end of fall as it moves north, passing into winter. He can feel Dean’s warmth, a spare centimeter of heat around the edges of his hand. For a minute it’s all he can feel.

The pump clicks off, and Sam jumps. Dean doesn’t move for a long breath, and when he does he passes in front of Sam with eyes averted, hands shoved in his pockets. Even through the thick material, Sam can see his clenched fists.

They breathe into the silence, and John takes entirely too long and not long enough settling the bill inside. Sam clambers back into the car, feeling the leather seat cold through his jeans. Dad turns the engine over, and they peel out and continue on.

_Never free, never me, and I dub thee unforgiven…_

The window glass is cold on his cheek, and Sam can feel each bump in the road reverberate in his bones.

He used to love these car rides, when it was dark and quiet. The night cocooning the car, and Dad a shadow in the driver’s seat, not a military drill sergeant or a broken shell bleeding whiskey and pain; just their dad, behind the wheel. Sam would pretend that they were going on vacation, somewhere warm and sunny; that they had reservations under their real names at a motel with a pool and that he and Dean would have water fights while their Dad fell asleep in the sun and woke up later, sunburnt and grumpy, with grand plans to coerce them do dorky things like mini-golf. Sam used to pretend that they were normal.

Now he closes his eyes and conjures up the exact shade of Dean’s eyes, the scent of the skin at the nape of his neck, the softness of his lips. He shoves his forehead into the glass until it hurts, stares until the shapes passing by merge into a shapeless blur of dark and bright.

He falls asleep, somewhere in Illinois, and dreams of long hallways and doors, of falling and falling. He wakes to sunlight and Dean’s hand on his arm, gentle. The light is white, everything sharp-edged and brilliant, and it’s another day.

***

Sam jerks Dean off for the first time in an anonymous gas station bathroom. He shoves him against the wall and nearly pinches his fingers tearing open the button and zipper of the jeans that Dean was supposed to throw out four months ago. The smell of disinfectant and old piss is overpowering, the _zzzzt-zzzzt_ of trapped flies and mosquitoes an uneven drone.

It’s fast and dirty and hot, Sam breathing into the crook of Dean’s neck, wrist cramped from the awkward angle, unsure and a mix of too-careful and reckless; Dean shoving his head back into the graffitied concrete and biting his own hand in two to muffle his groans.

Afterwards, Sam is shaky-legged and bashful, positive that the truckers outside know, that the dreadlocked cashier can smell it on him.

His brother is uncharacteristically silent, and Sam worries, slouched against the car, that he has gone and done something Really Bad and Fucked It All Up. Again. Then Dean comes up from behind, a fistful of beef jerkys and his trademark grin, and brushes his hand against the front of Sam’s jeans and his lips (still swollen from the pressure of his own teeth) against the shell of Sam’s ear before sliding into the Impala.

John has to call Sam’s name twice before he hears, and once more before he remembers how to get in the car.

Sam spends the next hour attempting to learn how to set people on fire with his mind. 


	12. Chapter 12

Winter comes early to North Dakota, and the town they’re staying in all but closes down after 4:00 pm; darkness chasing everyone into warm lighted houses with dinner in the oven. Sam walks back from school, crunching through frost and brittle grass, dirt frozen as hard as the concrete sidewalk that ends a mile short of where he needs it to.

He’s walked through the single block and a half of stores, and wound his way into a residential neighborhood straight out of the real estate boom of the 50s and early 60s. All the houses are similar - split-level ranches with one-car garages and neat postage stamp lawns. He sees yellow light spill in squares onto the colorless grass, sees the flicker of tv screens, the steam build-up on the picture windows from families living, breathing, cooking together.

Gradually the houses get farther apart, move farther away from the road, until he passes maybe two mailboxes in ten minutes. It’s cold now, settled in his bones, and he can’t feel his feet despite two layers of socks inside his boots.

His footsteps are loud on the pavement, kicking loose stones and scratching through sand left over from last year’s plows. It’s almost too dark to see when he finds their driveway.

The For Sale sign is crooked, white gone green-grey with mold and weather. The yard is neglected, a gentle half-acre slope up to the front door turned wild, woven with saplings and vines and creeping groundcover. It’s a perfect shield.

The house itself is dark, forlorn and empty in that way that only an unlived place can look. The windows are blank slates, reflecting the darkness outside. Dean isn’t back yet.

He pushes through the front door, closing it behind him and shoving the cinderblock in front of it as a way to make sure it stays. It’s dim inside, even more so than outside and Sam’s never been one to be afraid of the dark - not after what he’s seen walk in daylight - but this is different. Feels different.

There’s no electricity, no heat, and running water only because Dean bushwacked his way into the fledgling forest a week ago when they set up camp to find the water valve to turn it on. It took nearly a half hour of cursing and yelling about freezing his balls off and then another ten minutes with a can of WD-40 and a wrench, but his war-whoops made even Sam smile when they coaxed a fitful rust-colored stream out of the faucet.

Dean isn’t back yet, and everything is still, the walls made of ice instead of plaster and lathe, and farther away than he remembers. It’s so cold.

And then he hears the crunch of gravel and a racket on the sagging porch, Dean kicking at the door - “Jesus, Sam, you forget about me?” And Dean barges in with a streaming nose and a coat gone stiff and waxy with cold, his hands and nose red. He dumps a backpack on the floor and flicks on the battery-operated camping lantern, blows on his fingers and sniffs loudly.

“Fucking colder than hell out there, Sammy.”

Sam feels his lips twitch up, involuntarily, goes to help Dean who is now struggling with numb hands to start a fire. “Pretty sure everything is colder than hell.”

Dean nudges him with one shoulder, chucks a wad of twigs underneath the pile of logs and grins. “Missing the point, geek boy.”

The red-gold glow of the fire makes the room cozy, draws the walls in closer and softens the sharp edges of neglect; the hole near the doorway where the ceiling came down; the rotted floorboards under the equally-unsafe window panes.

It casts light on Dean’s face, his smile, the tips of his hair, and Sam is struck by the thought that he is alive, and here, and in this moment on earth. Dean claps his hands together, stands and stretches out the kinks in his back.

“C’mon, man, I’m starving. Fuckers didn’t even give me a real lunch break.”

They eat out of cans heated up in front of the fire, spaghetti-os and beef stew. As the fire settles, layer of glowing coals at the base, they shed coats and boots.

Dean tells him about his day, about the furnace that quit on some sweet old lady and how she made them cookies when they fixed it, told them about her grandson who was in Florida for college, how he sent her oranges last week, fresh from the tree.

Sam talks, gestures with a spoon around mouthfuls of warm stew, and tells Dean about how his history textbook ends with the Cold War still unresolved, how the library still doesn’t stock copies of _The Catcher in the Rye_ or _Tropic of Cancer_.

They each have sleeping bags, and blankets, but they’ve zipped them together, given up on sleeping apart after the first night. Dean says it’s too cold for that shit, and Sam agrees, acts like it’s just another sucky thing about this particular gig, but smiles privately, feels his stomach clench in a good way.

He settles back against Dean’s chest, warm inside for the first time since he left school, and watches the flames. They’re hypnotic, soothing, and he isn’t really thinking about anything, just letting his mind ride the peaks of orange light. It’s nice, more than nice, and then he feels Dean press a soft kiss into the side of his neck, rub his nose into the fine hair behind Sam’s ear. The warmth in his limbs concentrates, gathers at his core, and he feels his pulse speed up under the soft kisses there.

Sam tips his head to the side, lets Dean have his way - he so rarely initiates contact that Sam treasures each time, like a gift. He can feel Dean’s hands pushing at his shirts, calluses catching on the flannel as he gets underneath, spreads his fingers out along Sam’s stomach and ribs, heat radiating from his palms, soaking into Sam’s skin as they stroke and knead, dipping lower. Sam drops his head back, braces one of his own hands on the blanket next to him and the other grabs at Dean’s head, winds itself in his hair.

His breath comes faster, shorter, and Dean’s heartbeat behind his shoulder is rapid, his own breathing shallow. He continues mouthing at Sam’s jaw, his neck, the edge of his shoulder, and Sam presses back into him, spreads his legs as far as he can in the confines of the sleeping bag, and shivers, muscles jumping when Dean undoes his jeans and gets a hand inside.

Sam presses harder on Dean’s head, clenches his nails in the blanket, as Dean strokes him, gently, fingers working over him like Dean is memorizing every inch, dipping, stroking over the head, and pressing lightly near the base, driving him insane with need. He can feel himself hardening, feel the heat and the blood rush, feel the sweat forming as he writhes, pinned between the fire and Dean, between heat and desire.

“Dean… oh god, Dean, _fuck_.”

Dean bites down on his shoulder, not enough to bruise, and huffs a breath. “Sammy, I know, I know.”

His hands are soft and hard at the same time, picking up speed and making Sam cry out, close his eyes and beg. He can feel Dean hard behind him, feel the way his hips are thrusting up into Sam, feel the burning need.

Dean pulls his hand away, and Sam groans with the unfairness. So close, he was so close, and “Dean, come on, please, fuck, don’t stop--”

Dean settles his hand on Sam’s hip, hot and sticky, and murmurs in his ear, “Turn over, c’mon.”

Sam fights the tangled covers and his own twisted jeans, shoves them down over his feet and loses them somewhere at the bottom of the sleeping bag. Dean’s working on his own pants, and there’s a couple seconds of awkward fumbling and cursing before Dean yanks Sam by the hips, pulls him forward and down.

There are too many knees and elbows and - “Ow, goddammit, that was my _foot_ you jerk” - and then Sam settles with his knees on either side of Dean’s hips, his ass in Dean’s lap, and gets pulled down into a kiss, their first real one all day.

They don’t waste time - it’s wet and messy and Dean kisses like he hunts - thorough and energetic, careful and intense. He sucks on Sam’s bottom lip, runs his tongue along the swollen edge and dives in, licking and sucking in turn. Sam has one hand on his shoulder, digging so deep he knows there’ll be marks, and tips his head to seal their mouths together, shifts his body closer, closer.

The rhythm comes, builds from the kiss, and Sam has to pull back to keep breathing, gasping for air. Dean’s mouth is red and sinful, echoing the flush high on his cheekbones, and Sam kisses him again and again, dragging his lips over Dean's stubbled jaw. Sam tilts his hips and moves slower, harder, feels Dean gasp and press his free hand into the floor for leverage, watches his eyes flutter shut.

Sam drops his head, lets it roll back as the pace speeds up, the friction gone and nothing left but a slip-slide of burning pleasure. He can feel the sweat on his skin and Dean’s, feel their heat and hear the evidence of their desire - groans and gasps and a filthy wet grind.

Dean fists a hand in Sam’s hair, tips it back farther and bites over his neck, his Adam’s apple, his quickening pulse; whispers things into his skin, secrets and pleas and disjointed words, _Sam, Sammy, Sammy._

Sam is gone, falling into the pleasure that spirals up, and he yells out as he comes, screams for his brother, and Dean answers, pressing so close it hurts, swallowing his cries until they both collapse, shuddering.

The fire has died down slightly, and the light is dimmer. Sam knows one of them should get up to bank it, add more logs to make sure they don’t freeze to death overnight. He knows this, and he knows Dean does too, but neither of them move.

He can feel Dean’s heartbeat and his own, the slow, powerful rhythm that follows climax. They are sticky and gross, sweat and spit and sex, and Sam breathes in deep, lets their scent block out the musty moldy scent of the abandoned house around them.

Dean shifts, twists them over until they’re lying on their sides, Sam tucked up underneath Dean’s chin. He strokes over Sam’s back, tacky with sweat, and Sam nudges his nose in closer, settles it into the hollow of his brother’s collarbone.

He closes his eyes, lets himself go, and on the edge of sleep he thinks he hears Dean, thinks he hears him whisper, muffled into Sam’s tangled hair, “Don’t you ever leave.”

But he’s not sure, and his eyelids are heavy, his brain honeyed with exhaustion, and the words get left behind as he falls down into the darkness.

The fire goes out in the early hours of the morning, grey dawn sending fingers around the edges of the door.

***

It snows two days later, and Sam stays home from school because they don’t have a car and the school district doesn’t know they’re squatting in an abandoned house.

He knows he could make it to the bus stop at the intersection a half-dozen blocks east, but he doesn’t. Dean calls in sick to work and they stay under the covers all day, a nest on the floor in front of the fire.

John will be back in three days.

Dean spreads Sam out on top of the blankets, scratchy wool on tender, sweat-soaked skin. Sam shoves his head back into the floor, so hard he can feel the splintered floorboards through the layers of blankets and fleece-lined sleeping bags.

He moans, and thrashes, and begs, over and over, _Dean, Dean please_ , until his voice is hoarse. Dean’s right hand is restless near his hipbone, stroking over the sharp edge mindlessly, and his mouth is hot and wet and perfect, and Sam feels tears slip down his cheeks when he comes, pool damply under the side of his head. He doesn’t know if they’re from relief, or happiness, or loss, since from this there is no going back, no returning to Bitch and Jerk and Brothers.

They have crossed a line somewhere, probably even before that first awkward kiss, and now it’s too far away to even see in the rearview mirror. He will never look at Dean the same way, and all of his family-brother-loyalty-love will now be tangled filthy and dirty with lust. With them.

Dean collapses next to his shoulder, sweat beaded on his neck, and Sam wants to lick it off. He also wants Dean to ruffle his hair at the dinner table, feed him that technicolor mac ‘n cheese and tell him about Karen aka Musta-Been-Double-Ds-Sammy-I-Swear-to-God. He wants to roll over, hitch his thigh over Dean’s hip and crush them together, fuck hard and nasty, come smeared everywhere and his lips on Dean’s lips, on his throat, on his chest his ribs his--

The fire pops, and Dean jerks his head up to make sure no embers landed on the bone-dry floorboards. He cracks his back, stretches his arms to the side, and then settles down, edges lined in gold.

His lips are swollen, eyes heavy-lidded and dark, and Sam doesn’t know how to reconcile this image, this naked, debauched Dean with the brother who patched his skinned knees and stole his Christmas presents and picked him up no questions asked from a school dance when Amy Fletcher said no in front of about fifty people and Sam had to leave before he cried or punched a hole in the gymnasium wall and Dean took him out to the diner by the highway and bought him weak coffee and thick pie and didn’t say a single word about it and Sam was so goddamn grateful he had to stare at his red-smeared plate and count the Fibonacci sequence to keep the tears back.

He knows (sorta) how to have sex, how to fuck around and cuddle and ignore morning breath and too-small beds. He knows how to tease and use his pointy elbows and knees to his advantage, how to piss Dean off and make him laugh, what scares him and what makes him dig his heels in.

He doesn’t know how to fuck his brother. 


	13. Chapter 13

Three days later, Sam decides he doesn’t care.

He and Dean snuck away, dad snoring on the bed despite the roar of the highway. They unlatched the door with careful fingers and unspoken prayers, stumbled to the parking lot where Dean borrowed a Cadillac’s backseat using a metal file and some stealth, taking twice as long as ususal since Sam couldn't keep his hands to himself.

Now Sam lies limp, chest still heaving and sweat undried on his skin, and watches the stars fade in and out through the window behind his head. There’s one small uneven patch that isn’t fogged over, and on the other side the clouds are moving fast, scrubbing over the stars, making them shine even brighter through the cold, clear air.

Dean sits up, as far as he can get, at least. Sam sees his teeth glint in the dark, feels his rough fingers slide down Sam’s ribs, hears his contented sigh.

Sam reaches out a hand, blindly, feels it catch on Dean’s arm, somewhere north of his elbow. Feels his own heartbeat heavy in his ears. Thinks, _Dean_. And asks his brother to fuck him.

***

When Sam was about twelve-thirteen, he’d invent fantasies of The Life It Should Have Been. When they were clocking six hour shifts in the backseat and Dad was unreachable behind a wall of strategy and research, he would lean on the window and let the passing monotony ( _tree - grass - tree- telephone pole - tree - bush - grass - telephone pole_ ) fade into a blur, a greenish-brown canvas on which he envisioned his life.

John would work in a garage, come home every night with black-edged fingernails and grimy overalls. Mary would have dinner ready, pot roast and mashed potatoes, maybe something for dessert if they were lucky.

Dean would bust in the door late, baseball letter jacket askew, and regale everyone with game statistics and _coach saids_ interspersed with details on his latest girlfriend. Sam would sit at the table, place setting shifted aside, and start his algebra homework while mom cooked and smacked Dean’s hand away from the bowl of cinnamony pie filling.

Sam would get all As, and his mom would be on the PTA, giving speeches about the importance of education and the need to keep the kids focused, reduce the dropout rate. She’d come to his math competitions, his physics contests, his mock debates, and drag him and his dad along to Dean’s baseball games.

They’d get takeout pizza on Fridays, crash in front of the tv and watch a game, maybe, or a movie. John would help Mary with the dishes, and Dean would lower his voice, lean over the edge of the couch where Sam was sprawled on the floor, and tell him all the things that Anna (or Lizzie, or Catherine, or Jenna) had let him do on their date at the movies.

And one day, Sam would bring home a sweet, whip-smart honey blond goddess to meet his parents, and Dean would crack wise on her being too good for Sam, and she would sass him right back, and John would nod approvingly and Mary would make a special dinner and ask all the mom questions.

And then the steady growl of the engine pegged at 75 would change pitch, or the pavement turn to gravel, or Dad yell from the front seat for Sam to get the map and find a way to get the hell around this traffic jam. And then the trees and bushes and telephone poles were themselves again, just objects on a lonesome stretch of highway somewhere he would never see again, ordinary things without the power to change his life.

Sam resolved that one day he would find that power, and once he did he would never let it go.

***

Now, sated and sleepy, he asks again, throwing something in there about _so far from normal anyway_ and Dean jerks back so fast he bangs his head on the doorframe.

" _Jesus,_ Sam. No."

Sam ignores the set of Dean's jaw and props himself up on his elbows, slipping a little on the leather.

"Why? Why not? How is that any different than what we've been doing already?"

Dean refuses to meet his eyes, lips thinned close to non-existent, and rubs a hand gingerly over the back of his head.

"It just is, okay? It's a lot different. Now come on, we gotta get back."

"Dean."

" _No_ , Sam."  He opens the door, lets in a rush of bitter cold, and scrambles out, smearing the fogged-up window. Sam falls back onto the seat and frowns at the roof of the car in frustration.  He's not even sure where his pants are at this point, and dawn's only a few hours away.  

***

Dean avoids him for the next three days, inasmuch as it's possible to avoid someone when you share a car and a fifteen-by-twenty hotel room with them. Sam waits it out.

Of course Dean breaks first, the hopeless sex-addict, and jumps Sam in the back alley of the bar where Dad's shooting pool for money, pins him against the rough brick and tears their jeans open, shoves his tongue down Sam's throat and his hands in Sam's hair.

It's over too fast, leaving them gasping and trembling with endorphins and fear, the knowledge that anyone could have walked out the door three feet away and seen them, and Sam closes his eyes and tries to breathe as Dean walks back in first, swagger in place and mouth wiped hastily clean.  _This is insane_.

Somehow that just makes him want it more.

***

Sam asks again, this time when Dean's leaning against a gas station wall, gasping, and Sam is kneeling, licking his lips and massaging his throat where it's going to hurt like a bitch in a few hours.

Dean's barely coherent, but his death glare doesn't need words.

***

Sam slides into the shower behind Dean, the early morning hour meaning John is getting coffee at that little shop down the road. 

Dean still says no, although it sounds less like a word and more like a drowning gurgle, and so Sam makes sure to turn the water all the way cold as he steps out.

***

Dean says no in the backseat of a stolen car, in a diner's Employees Only supply closet, and in a bar bathroom.

Sam stops asking after a while.

***

Two weeks later, he's kidnapped by a cult trying to summon an ifrit.

When he wakes up in the hospital, Dean is there, whiter than the plaster behind him and looking ten years older. Apparently, the cult was legitimate, and powerful, and the ifrit was nearly corporeal before Dean and John got there. Sam was tied to a chair, unconscious, intended as a sacrifice to be roasted alive.

That's all Sam can get out of him, and when he asks what happened to the cult members, Dean thins his lips and looks away.

***

Dean doesn't touch him for a week after, and Sam follows him with his eyes, aching. He can't even say anything since Dad's there, nearly all the time, slumped at the table doing research or just outside the door with a bottle of Jack in his hand and watery eyes. 

Sam never thought he'd live to see the day he'd be praying for a hunt, but he just needs some time out from under the weight of his father's scrutiny, the half-resentful, half-guilty looks he keeps getting whenever Dad thinks he's asleep. Sam can't breathe for the weight of it.

John finally cracks, takes the car but leaves the bag of guns, promising Dean in an undertone that he'll be back in a day. Dean says, "Yes, sir" and his face is carefully blank. Sam closes his eyes and doesn't open them until Dean slides into bed with him as the engine fades, turns on the tv and loses himself in some police procedural drama that Sam can't follow with the meds he's on.

Under cover of being in pain and unable to get comfortable, Sam shifts closer; Dean's eyes don't leave the screen. Sam knows better.

He falls asleep curled into Dean's side, and Dean lets him.  It's a start. 


	14. Chapter 14

Sam wakes from a dream, gasping and disoriented, and Dean is already at his side.

"Sam? Sammy, you okay?" There is worry in his sleep-blurred voice, and Sam swallows, nods.  

"Yeah. Yeah, fine."

But he's not, and Dean may act like a clueless idiot half the time, but he isn't actually stupid (no matter what Sam says when he's trying to piss him off) and so he doesn't try to leave, just sits, one hand on Sam's back while Sam breathes shakily and tries to shed the afterimages of the dream.

Sam inhales, feeling Dean's hand warm and heavy, an anchor in the dark. He exhales and opens his eyes.

"I almost saw it, you know? Just out of sight."

Dean turns towards him, face invisible. "The ifrit?"

"Yeah. It was--" He clears his throat, flops over on his back, Dean's hand ending up on his stomach. "It was... nothing. Just blackness. You know, you see all the pictures in the books, and it's always a winged demon with flames around it, but there was nothing there. Just... heat. And hunger."

The fingers on his chest clench slightly.

"Sammy-"

Sam sits up, dislodging Dean's hand, and grabs at his arm. "No. Stop it. It's not your fault and I don't blame you."

Dean sighs. "How did you even--"

Sam shifts closer, slides his hand around the back of Dean's neck and grips the hair there, drops their foreheads together. "I know everything about you, Dean. I know your favorite color and your favorite gun and that you don't like macaroni and cheese but used to make it for dinner anyway because I did. I know how you think, how you fight, and all the lame jokes you think are funny."

He can feel the glare, even if he's too close to see.

"I know you blame yourself whenever anything bad happens to me or Dad, and you shouldn't. And I know..." He swallows. "I know you love me, you do, don't make that face. And I love you, I've always loved you, Dean."

Sam rests his head on Dean's neck, heart pounding again, and wonders if maybe he can get his point across by osmosis since Dean's too stubborn to actually listen. To his surprise, Dean doesn't fight it, just gently disentangles them and lowers Sam back down to the bed.

"It's three in the morning, you should sleep.  We're leaving at six."

He doesn't make a move to go back to his own bed, though, and stays, one hand absentmindedly rubbing his mouth. He stays until the sky lightens, until the growl of the Impala cuts through the gray dawn and it's time to move on again.

***

Dad won't let Dean come with him on this latest hunt, and Dean storms out of the rented house before the dust kicked up by the car has even settled, boots reverberating on the sagging porch. He doesn't say a word to Sam, but for the next few hours, Sam hears distant gunshots, on and off, and pities whatever dead tree is serving as the target.

He opens a can of soup and makes dinner, turning on the light when it gets dark and Dean's still gone.

The crickets are chirping, moths circling the single naked bulb, when the screen door squeals and Dean walks in, his shoulders loose and hands gritty with dirt and gunpowder. Sam starts to sit up from where he's sprawled over the couch, a stack of books next to him and one in his hand; starts to say  _Hey_ and  _There's some dinner in the kitchen if you're hungry, but look out because the left burner's got a short and nearly blew the fuse when I turned it on_.

Dean doesn't let him begin, just crosses the room in three strides and crushes him into the couch.

He kisses like it’s their last night on earth, like Sam is the last good thing, lips and tongue twining and sliding, pulling apart just to breathe, barely touching, and then fitting back together, deep and messy and leaving them both breathless. He rucks up Sam's t-shirt, slides his hands underneath just to watch him squirm. 

Sam feels him smile against the sweaty skin under his lips, feels his teeth hard against his throat like he wants to bite, to sink his teeth into Sam and leave evidence, a red mark that’ll sing _Dean_ with every beat of Sam’s heart. He doesn’t, though, and it lies between them like a weight.

But then he’s moved past, down over Sam’s collarbones and chest, down to his stomach, where the muscles jump under his lips, trembling with arousal. His amulet trails cold over superheated skin, and Sam shivers, toes curling.

Dean looks up at Sam, strung out and needy above him, and licks his lips, swollen and red with Sam’s kisses and Sam thinks, _Finally_. He feels his control slipping.

“Dean, please.” He shoves his head back and arches, feeling Dean’s thumbs slide over his hipbones, fit around them warm and solid. “Fuck me.”

He’s gasping for air that doesn’t come, clenching his fingers in the cushions to avoid just grabbing his brother and shoving. He hears Dean snort a little.

“Pushy little bitch.” It sounds light and teasing, like every other day between now and ten years ago, except for the little breathless hitch that gives him away.

“ _Please_.” Sam knows it won’t do any good, but that doesn’t stop him. He’s expecting a quick rebuttal and an arm across his waist, holding him down gently but firmly. _No. Not yet. Not until I say._

But then, for the first time, Dean hesitates. Breathes unsteadily before he presses a kiss to Sam’s hipbone, one hand trailing up his belly and over his chest, surprisingly gentle. His eyelashes are dark fans against his freckled cheek, and his lips are unbearably warm as they mouth at the skin there.

“…You sure?”

There’s a beat of silence, then, “Fuck, Dean. _Yes_.” He picks his head up, peering down the length of his body and tangling his fingers with Dean’s where they still rest over his heart.

Dean’s eyes are closed, face unreadable as he mouths over Sam’s hipbone, rubbing against it like a cat, and making Sam shiver at the scrape of his stubble.

“Sammy, you have to be sure. We can’t go back from this, okay? This is it. I can’t--”

His eyes are open now, wide, and Sam can hear the rest of the sentence as clearly as if Dean had spoken it. He unclenches his other fist from the ratty cushion, and swipes his thumb across Dean’s cheekbone.

“I know.”

And now Sam’s eyes are closed, and he feels Dean lift up and away, across the room to rustle through his duffle bag, and Sam bites his lips to keep from whimpering at the sudden loss of warmth and weight.

He’s back, sinking into Sam like they were made to fit together, slotted and neat on a thrift-store couch. He covers Sam’s mouth with his own, steals his breath and gives it back, leaves him gasping and slides his way down the couch, fitting his arms around Sam's hips and his mouth around Sam's cock. 

Dean tortures him, licks and sucks and swallows, gagging a little when he takes it too far, but he won’t let Sam come. He pulls off every time Sam gets close, and it’s while Sam is so distracted, begging and swearing and thrashing, that he slips his index finger inside him.

It feels - different. Not bad, not good, just - odd.

But the way Dean keeps his teasing him, using his other hand in tandem with his mouth, that’s what makes it good. Sam thrusts up, again and again, the waves of pleasure swelling and receding, and so strong that the discomfort as Dean adds more fingers (gradual, so careful) is almost ignorable.

Then he pulls them out and slides two in, all the way to the webbing, and crooks them upwards on the way out, and Sam arches off the couch, mouth dropping open in a half-shocked, half-ecstatic gasp as pleasure ripples white-hot up his spine. Intense and electric, arousal spreading out along his nerves, and all he can do is hold on.

“Dean, please, _please_ , fuck me _goddammit_.” There’s no one around to hear him, and even if there was, he wouldn’t care.

Dean withdraws his fingers, lifts off of Sam, and pulls him up.

“Come on, Sammy, gotta turn over; be easier this way, come on.”

And Sam goes, settling chest-first against the couch with a soft moan. He feels Dean stroke warm hands down his back, feels him press a kiss between Sam’s shoulder blades.

“Tell me if it hurts, and I’ll stop, Sammy. Gotta tell me, promise you will.” There’s something in his voice, something that cuts through Sam’s haze of arousal, and he feels his heart expand.

He’s incapable of words, but he nods against the arm of the couch, eyes squinched shut, and when he feels Dean pause, he huffs out an exasperated breath and rolls his hips in blatant invitation. Dean smirks, and braces one hand on Sam's hip as he lines up.

He feels Dean pressing in, unbearably huge and hot, and it does hurt, even with the lube and the prep, it does, but no way in hell he’s letting Dean know. He forces himself to relax, breathes through his nose and keeps his eyes shut. If Dean stops now, he’ll kill him.

He can feel Dean behind him, inside him, one hand bruising his hip and the other grabbing onto the couch like it’s the last thing left. His body is tight, muscles clenched and he’s shivering with the tension. He pushes in, slow and careful, so slow until he’s bottomed out, chest flat to Sam’s back. Sam can feel him shaking with the effort of holding still, of letting Sam adjust.

“Oh god Sammy, fuck, you’re perfect, god _Sammy_ \--” His lips are sticking to Sam’s hair, voice shot through with gravel, and Sam can hear the wonder in it, hear how he’s broken Dean up into little pieces from the inside out, just the same way Dean’s always done to him.

Sam wants to cry with relief, wants to scream, wants to hold Dean down and never let him go, wants to fuck and be fucked and savor the scent of Dean on his skin because this is it, this is the end, and it’s beautiful and messy and painful and everything (the only thing) he ever wanted.

He shifts his hips, experimentally, and Dean takes up the slack, thrusting as slow as he can, hands drifting over Sam, neck and chest and thighs, gently molding him to fit. The pain flares hot and sharp, and Sam bites back a grunt, struggles not to give it away, but he can tell Dean notices, presses a soft sucking kiss to his neck and slows the pace even though he’s already trembling on the edge. Slowly it fades as his body adjusts, and it finally disappears in a rush of heat when Dean shifts his angle. Sam gasps against the rough fabric, arching into the sensation, and feels Dean’s answering groan against the sweat-soaked skin of his back as he slips his arms under Sam’s shoulders, cradling him, taking their weight together.

He presses his forehead between Sam’s shoulder blades, and Sam can’t tell whose sweat is whose anymore, who’s making what sounds. He shoves back, takes Dean deeper, and feels the hot throb of arousal build low in his stomach as Dean shifts a calloused hand to grip him.

The strokes build, faster, Dean smearing his thumb over the head, fingers slippery with lube and Sam. He whispers into Sam’s skin, licks at the sweat and murmurs things Sam can’t hear (except for _Sammy_ , _Sammy_ ) repeated with breathless awe.

Dean’s thrusts are speeding up; Sam can feel him struggling to hold on, hold back, but his rhythm is faltering, hips snapping powerful and hard, sliding deeper and deeper and it’s all Sam can do to keep up, shoving back to meet him every time and arching his spine, trying to open up, to take more.

“Oh god Dean, _Dean_.”

And Dean’s lost it, thrusting bone-deep, hand stroking Sam fast and wet and dirty, and he lifts his head, whispers into Sam’s ear, his sweat-soaked hair--

“Sammy, Sammy, come on, come for me--”

And Sam comes, hot and wet along Dean’s hand and the cushions; feels his orgasm wrack his body and bites down on Dean’s forearm to stifle his cry.

Dean follows, lips brushing Sam’s ear and the back of his neck as he feels Sam clench around him, silky wet heat, and he comes with a groan, falling limp and sated on top of Sam.

A couple minutes tick by; maybe more. Sam can’t move, doesn’t want to, echoes of pleasure shivering through his limbs, thighs trembling and pulse thudding almost audible in his ears. He feels hot and swollen down below, feels the trickle of Dean’s come slide out around as he softens, still inside Sam. Sam keeps his eyes closed, a bead of sweat dropping into his mouth, and wishes they could just stay forever like this, but Dean shifts and hisses, peeling his skin away from Sam’s like it hurts. When he pulls out, Sam inhales sharply at the drag like sandpaper on his oversensitive skin, and Dean makes an apologetic noise, presses a kiss to his hip.

He cleans them up a little, attempts to do the same to the couch, although it doesn’t really matter since they’ll be leaving soon anyway and Dad’s not really that observant about furniture unless the item in question is possessed or cursed or otherwise occupied with trying to kill someone. Sam likes the idea that this couch will hold an imprint of them, soaked and sweated and woven right into the fabric, after they go, maybe even after they’re dead, like proof.

“Sam, let’s go, gotta take a shower.”

Dean tugs at Sam’s shoulders, gentle but insistent, and Sam feels the slightly repressed panic behind the words, the forced calm of his voice.

“Sammy, please, we have to hurry up. Come on.”

He goes, reluctant and sluggish, feeling the ache in his muscles and the burn down below, offering a prayer of thanks to whoever's listening that Dad is supposed to be gone for three-four days and he won't have to worry about sitting in a car for six hours anytime soon.

The carpet is green-gray and threadbare, any softness worn out long ago by an endless parade of feet, and stained in multiple places with things that could be barbeque sauce or vomit or blood.

Dean’s looking at it like it might hold the answers to the universe.

A wave of cold panic smashes through Sam’s warm happy glow, and he reaches out a bit clumsily and grabs Dean’s bicep. He can’t ask, not in words, but he’s pleading with his eyes - _Dean, look at me, come on man, look, it’s okay please don’t do this_ \- and finally he feels Dean relax under his grip. He blows out a sigh and meets Sam’s gaze, looking rueful and regretful but his eyes are shining soft and clear despite the surface tension. It’s not perfect, but then he did just fuck his little brother through the couch, so Sam figures he’s entitled to some self-doubt.

Dean shakes his head, looking absurdly like he’s trying to think of reasons why this should be affecting him more than it apparently is, and then gives up, one side of his mouth quirking upwards.

“Come on, Sam.”

Sam goes, like always.


	15. Chapter 15

It’s late, but not late enough.

Dad’s been gone for exactly twelve minutes and forty-six seconds, which means there’s still a chance he’ll walk in the door. He’s very all-or-nothing; it’s either back in a quarter of an hour, sober and spoiling for a fight, or gone for seven hours and stumbling in around dawn with a face like wax paper.

Sam can’t take it.

It’s been days since he and Dean have had a moment to themselves. This hunt was a bitch, and dad rode them hard, shoving coffee and brusque remarks across the cheap wooden table while they yawned and squinted over newsprint at two in the morning, the glare of the single naked bulb making it feel like the Inquisition. Sam read the same paragraph five times without absorbing a thing, the world blurry around the edges and his eyes watering from holding back the yawns. All he wants to do now is sleep, even if it’s on the lumpy sofa.

But he can’t, because Dean is at the table inventorying ammo, and the bare length of his forearm is distracting. Sam keeps imagining those arms around him, cradling him as Dean takes him apart; bracketing his head as Dean thrusts, slick with sweat and tasting of salt. He remembers how the muscle felt under his tongue when he bit down, hard, to muffle his cries.

It’s been nearly three weeks, which is nearly a month, which is far too long. He can’t believe it’s like this, already. It’s been twice - once fumbling and quick and nervous on a couch two states away, and once hard and hot and dirty in a public restroom two blocks from the motel while John was out drinking, and Sam can’t figure out how he managed (is managing) without it. He can’t sit on this couch - brown and rust-colored plaid with a giant rip in the back, and almost mocking in its innocence - without remembering that Other Couch and the feel of Dean on top of him, the lines it left imprinted on his skin and the way that Dean traced them, sleepy and warm around him after they cleaned up; the scent of sweat and cheap laundry detergent and sex. He can’t use a gas station restroom without feeling a stir of arousal; remembering Dean’s legs bruising his waist and the way his neck and chest flushed, his eyes dark and wide and big enough to fall into, and Sam tried, he really did, burying his face in Dean’s shoulder as he thrust, feeling them both shake against the beige tile wall as they came undone.

He’d be hard right now if he wasn’t so exhausted.

Dean shoves back from the table and sighs, rubbing his eyes with loose fists. He looks as tired as Sam feels, melting into the chair. The lamplight sparks gold from his hair, and to Sam’s sleep-deprived brain he almost seems to waver, outline limned with light, like a halo.

Sam’s up before he registers the impulse, leaving the library book on the floor, spine cracked and pages spread like a wounded thing. He’s normally so careful, especially with things that aren’t his.

Dean doesn’t expect him, so Sam’s able to get there, grab the top of the chair back and straddle Dean’s lap. He smells like warm cotton and gunpowder, a metallic tang from the iron bullets.

“Sam, what the hell.”

He sounds half-asleep, voice raspy and thick, but his eyes blink up, as brilliant and clear as ever in the soft light. Sam leans down to kiss him before he even thinks, before Dean can think and frown and shove Sam away and come up with a hundred reasons why they Cannot Do This Now and why they have to Wait and then maybe if he starts down that path, starts thinking like that, it’ll devolve into We Shouldn’t Be Doing This Anyway and then Sammy We Have To Stop and that will be the end of the only good thing in Sam’s life, the only thing he’s ever wanted enough to risk losing his brother for.

He keeps the kiss light, gentle, just lips really; touching and tasting, and he feels Dean give underneath him, hands coming up to grip his hips, head tipping back slightly. Sam relaxes - just a little - keeps one hand on Dean and one on the chair, two fixed compass points in the dark.

Dean sighs, soft, his breath tickling Sam’s cheek, and then he drags a hand up to Sam’s head and grips the back of his neck, tipping his head and angling the kiss. Sam’s heart skips a beat, stops and restarts, faster than before.

Sam opens, lets Dean tangle their tongues together, keeping it soft and slow, but laced with intent, with meaning, and then Sam settles a little deeper into Dean’s lap, rocking his hips into Dean’s, while Dean captures his lower lip between blunted teeth and sucks - just a little. Just enough to pull a moan from Sam, a sound that hangs between them like something spoken.

And then Dean pulls back, not far, just enough so that Sam can see the arousal in his pale cheeks - too much research, not enough sleep - the way his mouth is swollen and shiny with their shared saliva, the way his eyes shine. And then he’s back, kissing down the side of Sam’s neck, mouthing over the hinge of his jaw and the pulse point in his artery, and Sam is gone, unanchored and falling, fingers pulled from the chair into Dean’s hair as Dean twists his own fingers in Sam’s to hold him still, kissing down to his collarbone and his breath is alternately cold and hot on Sam’s flushed skin, licking along his throat and Sam groans, deep and visceral, head tipped back and eyes closed against the steady thrum of his heartbeat pulsing in his head and limbs, the echoing throb in his groin, and he arcs up, taut and straining, scrabbling for leverage on the worn pine floorboards, feeling denim chafe and rub against skin too sensitive, too hot and aching for anything but Dean and then --

The door slams.

Dean’s on his feet instantly, one of the revolvers on the table now in his hand, legs braced and chin up. Sam’s behind him, where he got half-thrown, half-shoved when Dean erupted out of the chair. There’s a brief moment where no one moves, everyone unsure of exactly what is happening.

“What the _fuck_ is going on.”

John’s voice is low and deadly, eyes clear. Not drunk. Not even close. Dean lowers the gun slowly, eyes wide and unbelieving, and Sam can feel him tense even three feet away, muscles stringing taut at the same time he curls inwards, ready for a fight but expecting defeat.

He swallows once, twice, and his voice is a shell of itself. “Dad?”

It’s a question and a plea and the last words of a dying man, and Sam sees his future in the next thirty seconds.

“Dean what-- What-- How--”

He sputters and the words choke and die, unformed, and his rage is a physical thing. He swells up, tall and wide and unbreakable, a mountain, and his eyes dart, mind tabulating, still trying to absorb the fact (stone cold, unmistakable fact) that he just walked in to see his two boys fucking with their clothes on.

He decides quickly, eyes narrow and dark, and focuses on his eldest. “What the fuck did you do to him, Dean.”

And Dean says nothing but he doesn’t have to, his posture says all the words, the deep painful words that Sam cannot will not hear--

_I’m sorry._   
_I’m so sorry._   
_Never again._

The click of a safety catch easing off sounds louder than the door did.

John’s gaze swivels to Sam like he’d forgotten his younger son was there, forgotten that this was anything other than just another check box on the list of Dean’s failures. Sam feels a glimmer of dark pride; dad always taught him, his first lesson, _Never ever ever underestimate the enemy_ (that’s how you get killed every single time; you have to plan and prepare and always be on the look out for it to stab you in the back, in the stomach, in the heart), and now look who’s an amateur.

“No.”

Dean turns and gapes at him too, the focus shifted now and far less dangerous as far as Sam is concerned. There’s confusion and grief written all over Dean’s face, so easy to read, at least for Sam, and for a second he looks back, tries to offer wordless reassurance, silently begs Dean, _Shut up please for once don’t crucify yourself._ Because Dean does, he always does; he steps between Sam and the monsters and he’s got the scars to prove it (gunshot, claw marks, teeth marks, burns), but this time Sam is first into the gap, because for this, for his family, Dean is not strong enough, failsafe hardwired into his soul, so easy for everybody to see. Ghosts, ghouls, witches, and things that go bump in the night - they never go after Dean because they know they don’t have to, they know they just have to threaten his family and Dean will go to them. And John knows too, of course he does.

It was Sam’s second lesson. _Use everything you know. Fight dirty. These sons-a-bitches ain’t people, they don’t have souls or a conscience; they don’t deserve a fair fight._

John starts forward, violence in every step, and Sam shoots a hole in the floor two inches from his left foot. It bisects one of the boards perfectly. A distant part of himself offers applause on his marksmanship.

“I said no.”

“Sammy--” John sounds like he spun the wheel and went through disgust, frustration, anger, sadness, disbelief and ended up on reasonable.

“No. You don’t-- You don’t get to call me that. Not anymore.” Sam blinks, he doesn’t know where that came from; it wasn’t premeditated, he didn’t plan on getting into an argument with his dad over his name, but now that the words are out, it feels right. Dad calls him Sammy when he’s being condescending, _Sammy, the baby, my youngest, the one who needs to be kept safe and coddled at all costs, even the cost of his sanity and his brother’s life._ Dean calls him Sammy like it’s their secret; whispers it into his hair, his neck, the hollow near his hip bone. He writes it on his skin with his lips, his tongue, his careful capable hands. It has become something more than syllables and letters, something sacred, something that belongs to him and Dean alone.

“Sammy, you don’t understand, what he did-- What he did, it’s okay, it’s not your fault, we can--” His voice is low and urgent, soothing but impersonal, the way he’d talk to a reluctant witness. He’s detached himself, some part of Sam notes. He doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t want to know.

He takes another step, palms out low and falsely placating, and Sam shoots another hole, on the other side. Bookends.

“I said _don’t call me that_.” He doesn’t recognize his own voice, an animal snarl.

Dean is startled out of his paralysis; it’s not every day the afternoon soaps come to life in your living room, and even a well-trained hunter can get caught rubber-necking, and he shakes himself and puts his gun on the chair, safety on and locked. He’s reaching for Sam, hands out - _it’s okay, not gonna hurt you_ \- and that seals the deal. As if Dean were capable of hurting Sam, or Sam capable of believing he could.

“Dean, go grab our stuff.”

“Sam--”

“Go. Now.”

He lets the mask slip, just for a second, just for Dean, and shows him the scared little brother -- _ten years old and too young for this shit, far too young but all dad says is ‘You were the same age’ and goes into the house like he’s got battle-hardened army buddies for backup instead of a skinny teenager and a snot-nosed kid, and Dean feels anger, real fury for the first time, but he pushes it down and wipes Sam’s nose with the sleeve of his plaid and adjusts his grip on the shotgun, promises it will be okay, and when Sam asks if they can have mac ‘n cheese for dinner, Dean says ‘Yeah, of course’ even though he hates the fake neon orange color. ‘Whatever you want, Sammy.’_

Dean sees this, and goes. Because Sam asked.

When he leaves, the room gets bigger. Sam hasn’t moved, not an inch, and John shifts, unsure, looking for all the world like he’s silently cursing all the hours he forced his boys to train, and doubly so all the extra time Dean coaxed a pissed-off and pouting Sam out into abandoned lots and empty fields.

Sam speaks, and his voice wavers, but only a little. The gun doesn’t.

“You can’t-- You have no right--”

He inhales. Exhales. Tension is wound so tight he’s vibrating.

“Dean didn’t _do_ anything to me. He would never-- you know he would never-- how can--” He stumbles over the words, desperate to explain but at a catastrophic loss. There are tears in his throat, anger or sadness or maybe both.

“Sam, it’s not right, you _know_ that. You know that. It stops. Now. It’s wrong, and I--” It’s the John Fucking Winchester voice, the cold solid firm Yes Sir voice, but Sam is not a good soldier and he doesn’t particularly care.

“ _I don’t care!_ ” He screams it, and it tears his throat on the way out.

The world is a crumbling room in an abandoned house, plaster peeling off in chunks and a cone of light illuminating the Unstoppable Force and the Immovable Object. It’s the final round.

“I don’t care, dad. I want this. This is the only good thing I have, the only thing, and I won’t let you take it away from me, you’ve taken enough and I am so sick of always having to leave, always giving up everything and listening to you, and I’m done.”

His chin is up, eyes blazing, and John is reminded of Mary, staring him down across a kitchen counter, _You have two boys at home, John_ , and he wonders, desperately, how things got this far.

“I want this, dad. I want Dean.”

John turns white and falters for the first time, weight shifting unsteadily and face going the sort of nauseated non-color that even his worst hangovers don’t cause. He looks like he’s about to either throw up or start shooting, and Sam feels a jolt of fear for the first time, wonders if his father is capable of killing him.

Or Dean.

The guns shakes in his sweaty, white-knuckled grip.

“Dad.”

Dean’s voice is over-loud in the silence, and John doesn’t miss the way Sam’s shoulders relax, the way his gun hand steadies. He trained his boys to be soldiers, fighting alongside and concerned only for each other, and somehow it ended up like this.

Dean stands inside the open back door, looking uncertain and wary, lost. John sees the moment when Sam makes the final decision; watches his eyes darken and his chin lift. He keeps the gun trained on John as he crosses to Dean, floorboards splintery under his bare feet. He reaches for Dean, intent on dragging him out the door and away.

But he hesitates.

And then he’s pulling Dean around, sharp and fast and not-thinking, and he kisses Dean on the mouth. It tastes of fear.

Before Dean can recoil - because Sam cannot take that, not ever and especially not now - Sam pulls back and stares defiantly at John, gun pointed sideways over Dean’s shoulder, level and deadly. He holds John’s gaze with desperate teenage bravado as he leans forward, tucks his nose under the edge of Dean’s jaw and sinks his teeth there.

Dean makes an involuntary noise of distress, and his hands come up to Sam’s back, but Sam’s moving before he can push him away, pulling Dean out the door and watching his father deflate, whole and strong and unbeatable against spirits and monsters and wraiths but defenseless against this, his flesh and blood.

Just before he slams the door, Sam says-

“Don’t try to find us.”

It’s almost a plea. 


	16. Chapter 16

They drive for eight hours straight, and it’s silent the whole time.

Dean keeps his eyes on the road, mouth pressed thinner and whiter than the lines that mark their passing, flaring in the headlights.

Sam keeps his eyes on Dean until he’s afraid he might start screaming, and then he forces himself to watch out the window, watch his own reflection until the weak gray light of dawn turns the glass transparent and he can pick out the shapes of trees and bushes and the swooping arcs of telephone wires.

He follows the black lines, suspended against a lightening sky, until he can’t think of anything else.

Dean doesn’t say a word.

***

He wakes up in a motel parking lot, blinking and sluggish, trying to remember when he fell asleep.

There’s a moment of pure panic, adrenaline flinging him out of the car and onto damp pavement. Dean’s not there. He spins wildly, heart beating in his ears and drowning out the calls of birds, the low drone of traffic on the highway behind him.

It’s early still, maybe eight or eight-thirty, and the sky is a pearl gray. It smells of rain.

“Hey. We’re in room 19.”

He almost jumps at the sound of Dean’s voice, hoarse with a thousand unspoken things and no sleep.

Dean’s standing behind him, holding a blue plastic keychain and giving nothing away. He looks like the same Dean who shoves Sam off of the booth seat in restaurants, the same one who hogs the hot water and leaves toothpaste in the sink, the same one who--

“ _Sam_. Let’s go. I haven’t slept in, like, three days, man. I’m starting to see shit.”

Sam helps him get the bags from the trunk, carries them to the room. There’s a moment when he sees that Dean’s gotten them two doubles that his heart sinks, but he swallows and ignores it.

_He chose me. He left with me._

Dean’s asleep as soon as he hits the comforter, shoes still on and everything. Sam sits on the neighboring bed, feeling like a child summoned to the principal’s office, shoes lined up neatly and hands in his lap. A big clock over his head, silent damning sweep of the red second hand, a tally of every minute that he has to wait.

He fiddles with a fold of the scratchy comforter, feeling his calluses catch on the loose strands, over and over again until it lulls him. He falls asleep as the sun burns through the clouds, weak yellow light drying the puddles.

He sleeps curled up, facing Dean.

***

Sam wakes up to the sound of a canned laugh track and the smell of fresh pizza.

He rubs his face into the pillow, trying to rub away the fuzziness in his head, and squints at the clock. It’s already past six and the sunlight is golden, streaking through the window across their beds. The traffic still rumbles by, a whole world of people doing things and going places, people with Plans and Destinations, and all of a sudden Sam feels very alone and very small.

Dean is propped against the headboard of the other bed, drinking beer and looking at the television but not really seeing it. He’s obviously showered since he woke up, and his hair is still slightly damp, the late afternoon sunlight turning it wheat brown instead of gold.

He pauses between sips, eyes on the screen.

“You awake?”

Sam tries to answer, but the words stick. He clears his throat and tries again.

“Yeah.”

“Hungry? I got pizza.”

There’s a softness in his tone, and Sam takes it for what it is. Dean would never just ask how he feels.

“Not really.”

He shifts, rising to a seated position and tucking his feet under him. Then he puts them back on the floor. Straightens up a little.

“Dean.”

The space between them, between the beds, is suddenly two miles instead of two feet.

“Dean, we need to talk, okay?”

Dean makes this noise, like his _Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph_ noise and Sam puts up a hand.

“Fine, fine, okay, you don’t have to talk. Just listen. Okay. Um, so--” He clears his throat. “I know that you’re upset and that’s okay, it really is, I get it. I just-- I want you to know that I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to get so far, and I kinda went a little crazy--”

Dean’s fixing him with a full-on glare now, his eyes dark and the line of his jaw clenched.

“Crazy is an understatement, Sam. What the hell, dude? You pulled a gun on dad and then you, you--” He swallows uncomfortably. “In front of _dad_. What the hell?” White all around his eyes, and the words he doesn’t say hang between them in the air, big and awkward.

He looks angry and lost and desperate, and so confused that Sam just wants to cry. Dean should never look confused. He’s the big brother, the protector, the one who stands between Sam and the monsters, between Sam and the loneliness. He’s supposed to have the answers, wrapped up with a sarcastic quip and a smirk. He’s not supposed to look how Sam feels.

Sam drops his eyes, drops his face into his hands and sighs.

“I’m sorry, Dean. I’m really, really sorry, but I can’t--”

He can feel Dean watching him across the divide.

“He was gonna make us stop. He was gonna make you stop, and you were gonna do it. Because he asked. Because you _always_ do what he asks.”

“Damn straight I was gonna do what he asked! He’s our father, Sam. Our father. He’s family, and he’s, he’s right; what we’re doing, it’s-- it’s not--”

Sam snaps his head up, narrows his eyes.

“Don’t. Don’t say it, Dean. Please. I swear to God, if you--”

Dean shuts up, maybe for the first time in his life. Sam takes a breath, tries to figure out how to say this, how to phrase it in a way that won’t send his brother running from him, running from him and them and this ugly beautiful fucked-up mess; running straight back to their dad and his goddamn orders and out of Sam’s life.

“I’m family too, Dean. I’m your brother, and I want this. Okay?”

He feels ridiculously dramatic. It’s like that play he did four (or maybe five) years ago at that school in Oklahoma. The cardboard props and the cheap polyester costumes and the cloying smell of Jennifer Weinstein’s strawberry lotion, rendered toxic under the heat of the lights. It’s a stage, an act - two brothers on two beds, two feet apart, except he doesn’t know the script. He doesn’t know how this is supposed to end.

“I want this, hell, I started it, and I don’t want to stop. Not ever. You’re the only thing I’ve got, the only good thing. We lost mom, and now dad, and please. Don’t make me lose you too.”

Someone takes a pratfall on the television, and the laughter is startling in the silence. The minutes tick by, and he sees again the sweep of a phantom second hand.

“Okay.” A sigh; resigned but certain.

Sam looks up, disbelieving. Dean isn’t looking at him; he’s staring at the comforter like it’s going to speak, or catch fire, or do something to distract him.

“What?”

“I said, okay.”

He looks up finally, then, catches Sam’s eyes with a weak smile and a half-shrug.

“What can I say, Sammy? You know me. Can’t leave you alone for the monsters to get.”

It’s a solid attempt at playing the role of Dean’s casual bravado. It really is.

“…But you want this too, right? ‘Cause, Dean, if you don’t--”

Sam feels a sudden sick flush, cold and hot all at once, prickling with sweat. What if Dean doesn’t want this. Never wanted this. What if he just did it because Sammy asked, because Sam’s his brother, his stumbling block, his only weakness? Because he’s always supposed to protect Sammy, save Sammy, look out for Sammy, give him what he wants.

“If you don’t, I-- We-- We’ll stop. We can stop and I swear I’ll never do - anything again. I swear, Dean. We can just forget about it and it never happened.”

The words are pieces of his heart, and he can taste the metallic tang of blood on his tongue when he swallows.

Dean’s hand on his wrist is an electric shock.

“Sam. Look at me. Sam.”

Sam looks, and Dean is right there. He’s perched on the edge of his bed, bridging the gap between the ugly-ass floral patterned comforters with his arm,  _Look at me._ Sam can feel the flex of his fingers, the warmth of his breath. His eyes are green enough to fall into, mint flecked with gold and honey and chocolate, and Sam never noticed before.

“I want this, too. It’s not just you, never has been.”

There’s a slight upwards quirk of his lips, a self-deprecating note to his voice, and the tears threatening to spill down Sam’s cheeks never quite make it there. Probably because his own smile is big enough to squish them back down where they belong. No chick flick moments.

He grins, and Dean grins back, and he goes to his brother, pulled across the two foot space like it’s only two inches.

He ends up on top of Dean, sprawled with elbows and knees all awkward. One of these days, it’s not gonna work so well like this; he’s already taller than Dean and if he keeps going, he’s gonna weigh more than him too. But that day is not right now, and Sam really doesn’t care if they ever make it that far. If he dies tomorrow, he’ll go happy.

It’s soft at first, tentative, like this is the first time. Dean tastes like pizza and beer; smells like generic soap and a richer tang of something Sam’s been trying to figure out since he was thirteen; something deep and earthy that makes him feel dizzy and reckless and safe all at once.

Dean slides his hand up Sam’s back, catching on the bumps of spine and palming over his shoulder blades before getting his fingers tangled in Sam’s hair and tipping his head just a fraction to the side. He opens up under Sam’s mouth, sucks gently on his lips and then follows it with his tongue, and Sam is breathless as they trade soft licks and touches, never separating.

Dean pulls Sam down harder, spreads his legs under Sam and bends one knee, gets his other hand on Sam’s ass and rocks them together, gently. No hurry now.

They kiss until Sam can’t breathe, until he feels his heart hammering in his chest, and he can feel Dean’s too, in stereo. He pulls up, saliva stringing between their lips for a millisecond, and Dean licks his slowly, like he knows exactly what it does to Sam.

Sam swallows, feeling hot and cold all at once. “I want you to fuck me.”

He gets the pleasure of watching Dean’s pupils dilate, so black with arousal that the green is a fragile ring; of feeling Dean harden against his hip.

He’s still smiling when Dean flips them, shorter than Sam maybe but still faster. He pins Sam’s arms above his head, wrists locked, and smiles back, his wolfish grin.

Their noses brush, softly, and then Dean’s kissing him, hot and wet and never-ending. He kisses until Sam tears his mouth away to gasp for air, until his body is on fire and his clothes several sizes too small, which Dean remedies by stripping both of their shirts off and flinging them into space. They hit something (the ugly lamp?) with a soft whump.

His skin is burning up and Dean’s is even hotter, heat fed and multiplied, crackling between them as they collide. _Like that skit - I’ve got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell_ , and Sam gives his brain a real what-for, because who thinks about Saturday Night Live while having sex with their brother, but then he’s entirely distracted as Dean manages to unbuckle his belt and wrangle off his jeans.

He’s hard, impossibly hard and aching, and it’s too much when Dean ignores that, runs his hands over Sam’s ribs and licks at the milky droplets scattered on his stomach. Sam flings his head back, scrabbles at Dean’s bare back with his hands and makes a noise he’s fairly sure isn’t even human. He feels Dean smile against his skin, murmur something he can’t hear over the roar of blood in his ears.

He plants a row of kisses down the inside of Sam’s hipbone, teases until Sam grips his head tight enough to draw a wounded sound from his brother’s swollen mouth. Any impatience melts away when Dean shifts, slides his hands under Sam’s hips and wraps those lips around him.

Sam loses time, he must, because the pleasure is a burning arc that sparks between his nerve endings as his brain goes offline. He loses himself in the sound of Dean sucking and licking, letting out soft moans against his hard flesh; in the scent of arousal and sweat; in the feel of callused fingers stroking over his stomach, his chest, leaving jerky trails of fire in their wake.

It’s a loss when Dean pulls away, slides his body up along Sam’s and his mouth along Sam’s collarbone, along the line of his throat.

“Dean, Dean, please.”

It’s a plea, barely half a step removed from begging, but Sam can’t be bothered to give a shit.

Dean nearly falls off of the bed trying to get his pants off at the same time as he grabs the lube from wherever it’s stashed in his duffle, but Sam’s too aroused to care or even notice much. He returns, chucking the bottle onto the bed next to the pillow and straddling Sam’s hips. But he doesn’t lean down, doesn’t offer Sam any of that delightful hot friction, which, even if it wasn’t enough to get him off, was at least enough to keep him from crawling out of his skin.

Sam cracks his eyes open.

Dean is perched above him, sweat shining in the soft dents and rises of his muscle; one clear bead trapped in the hollow of his throat. Even the cord of his amulet is damp.

He’s got one hand on his neck, curious, and a peculiar glint in his eye. Sam groans.

“Dean.”

Dean moves his hand, and his eyes fix on Sam’s. It’s evident that he was touching the bite mark Sam left on him last night, purple now and faint.

He clears his throat, but his voice is still gravelly when he speaks. “Knew you’d be a biter, Sammy. Got a thing for it, huh?”

And Sam doesn’t know if it’s the tone of his voice or the actual words, but he gets a sharp thrill that translates itself into a full-body shudder and a bitten-off moan.

“Kinky son-of-a-bitch.”

Dean’s back over him, amulet dragging along his chest as he kisses his way back to Sam’s mouth. He pauses at Sam’s throat, presses an open-mouthed kiss there.

“Gonna mark you up, Sammy. Gonna bite you and fuck you and make sure you feel it tomorrow.”

Sam bites his lips and barely keeps in a moan.

Dimly, he feels Dean reach over, flick open the cap of the lube and coat his fingers. And then he doesn’t feel much of anything beyond an overwhelming spiral of pleasure that burns up his spine. It’s five minutes and five hours later when he gathers enough brain cells to reach out and manage to catch Dean’s wrist, wet with sweat and lube.

“Can’t-- Dean, stop, please, gonna come, stop--”

His hair is sweaty, stuck to his face and neck, and then Dean is brushing it away, cupping his jaw and kissing his mouth almost chastely as he slides home.

Sam nearly comes off the bed, mingled pleasure and pain overriding his circuits and all rational thought. He feels Dean shudder, clench his muscles in order to hold still; feels him huff out a breath of desperate arousal as he presses his face into Sam’s neck, rubs it there and sucks in shallow lungfuls of air. Sam feels himself relaxing (easier this time), opening up, and he rocks his hips teasingly, takes Dean a little deeper and feels him groan. He wraps his arms around Dean’s shoulders and gasps into his ear.

“ _Move_ , Dean, dammit.”

Dean lifts his head and kisses Sam’s jaw as he starts to rock, long slow undulations of his hips. It’s too much and not enough, and then Dean wrenches Sam’s arms free and pins them over his head. They’re connected, hip to shoulder, a closed circuit overloading in a shower of sparks, and Sam lifts his head, finds Dean’s mouth and seals them together.

His thrusts become deeper and faster, angling up and taking Sam with him as he falls. Sam wraps his ankles around Dean’s hips, arches up and hears him groan. And then Dean mouths over his pulse point, kisses it and bites down, hard. Sam gasps, shock and the jagged edge of pain mingled with everything else, overwhelming, and he is burning white-hot, consumed by Dean and if this is how it ends, if this is how he dies, it’s okay.

“Sammy, Sammy, fuck--”

And Sam is groaning back, what he doesn’t know, but he knows a good part of it is just his brother’s name, repeated like a mantra.

“Dean, Dean, oh god Dean--”

Dean releases his hands, shifts his own arms down to use his elbows for leverage, and Sam gets one hand fisted in the short hair at the nape of Dean’s neck, and the other on the swell of his ass, pressing down as Dean thrusts in and his own hips rock up.

He’s close, so close, and then Dean moves onto one arm, shaking with effort, and wiggles the other in between them, grips Sam and that’s it.

Two, maybe three firm strokes later, and Sam is losing it, tipped over the edge of absolute sensation, lost in waves of pleasure. Distantly, he feels his body contract, rising off the bed as he rides out his orgasm; feels Dean cry out, just as lost as he is. Feels the sudden flood of warmth, the not-entirely-unpleasant sensation of Dean filling him up, spilling between them onto the bed.

Dean collapses on top of him, and they can only lie there, gasping and sweating and thoroughly fucked. They’re so close, an intertwining of arms and legs and lips, he can’t tell where he stops and Dean begins; maybe he doesn’t want to.

When conscious thought returns, Sam knows he made the right choice.

Dean would never in a million years admit it, but Sam knows he knows it too.


	17. Chapter 17

Dean’s watching television. Again. Sam’s busy squinting at the size-negative-three font on this computer printout and trying to figure out if the mutilated sheep carcasses in the outlying farms are a sign of ritualistic demon worship or just some poor stupid wolf that’s gonna get himself filled full of shotgun pellets by an irate farmer.

He looks up, and the clock is glaring 11:39 at him like an admonishment. He’s been at this three hours.

His eyes are tired, and his ass is sore from sitting, and it’s only sheep. Not people.

He looks at Dean, half-asleep and sprawled on the rumpled sheets.

He looks at the newsprint and the almost-illegible scribbles of his cheap black-and-white notebook, a hasty mental dump of everything he remembered from dad’s journal, out of order and probably missing major chunks.

He looks back at the bed. Dean’s t-shirt has ridden up, exposing a flash of pale skin above his belt.

He looks at the clock. 11:41. The papers are suddenly extremely boring.

Before he knows it, he’s standing next to Dean’s bed, watching the colors from the muted television shift over his face, the uneven light highlighting his cheekbones and the curve of his jaw.

Dean reaches up, not even opening his eyes, and brushes his fingers across Sam’s stomach, curling them over the buckle of his belt. His fingers are warm and dry, and Sam’s skin jumps at the touch, building into a fluttering warmth in the pit of his stomach.

“C’mere.”

Sam goes.

***

Afterwards, drifting on a warm golden swell of pleasure, Sam feels Dean shift at his back, arm sliding to his hip. A breath of cool air touches his back as Dean pulls away, angling himself to pull out.

“Wait. Don’t.”

Sam reaches back blindly, gets his hand on Dean’s wrist, feels him go absolutely still.

“…You know it’ll hurt later, right, man? I mean, you’re not really a chick.” His voice is warm and smiling, light with teasing, but Sam knows him well enough to catch the undertone.

He rolls his eyes and shifts backwards until he meets the slightly sticky warmth of Dean’s chest at his back, the soft touch of Dean’s mouth on his neck.

“I know. Not for long, just-- Just not yet.” He feels sleepy and warm and boneless, melting into the sheets.

Dean hesitates for only another second, before sliding his arm around Sam’s waist and pulling him in closer, no gap between them, and Sam can feel his brother’s heartbeat against his shoulder. He buries his face in Sam’s hair, inhales deep and Sam lets him, smiles softly to himself but doesn’t say a word because he knows, he gets it, the need to sleep over and under and around each other, entwined but never close enough to satisfy.

Dean would cut himself open and fit Sam inside if he could, and Sam would let him, which is ten thousand ways of fucked-up, but Sam doesn’t care, and he doesn’t even care that he doesn’t care, and at some point he just rolls his eyes (at himself, this time) and falls peacefully asleep.

***

They’ve been on their own for six months now. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of dad, even though Sam was pretty sure they wouldn’t. He dumped their phones, their credit cards, and most of the fake IDs, even though Dean bitched about all of his hard work - read: flirting with girls in copy shops - going to waste. Dean switched out the license plates on the Impala - hello Nebraska - but he laughed when he told Sam, shaking his head, kind of rueful and self-mocking. Like there was any way of properly disguising the car, or of Dean giving her up for something less conspicuous. Sam didn’t even bother to ask.

They got new phones, new credit cards, new IDs, all of them with names Dad’s never heard of, pulled out of Sam’s old school textbooks and Dean’s surprisingly extensive mental catalogue of drummers and bassists from one-hit wonder groups spanning thirty years or so.

They keep their heads down, and stay away from any signs or omens that remotely resemble those that dad might be following up on, looking for the thing that killed their mother and his wife.

That was their biggest fight so far; Dean wanted to keep looking, was sure that he and Sam would fare better than dad, even, because there were two of them and they were younger and faster and plus it was their _mother_ , this was personal and this was _family_ , goddammit, this was not something that you walk away from. Sam refused, flat out. Fear that they would run into dad and he’d try to - to exorcise Dean, or kill him, or talk him out of it, and Sam just shut down. He didn’t say it outright, couldn’t, but he thinks Dean got it anyway.

It still hurts, of course it does, but Sam tells himself - tells Dean - that it’s not worth finding this thing if it ends up with one of them dead. It’s already taken too much.

Dean always grumbles and looks angry when he brings it up, more at himself than at Sam; that inner-focused glare that means he’s feeling like a let-down and a fuck-up of the highest degree. Sam tries to convince him that _he_ is his family duty, and if Dean gets himself killed and leaves Sam alone behind to burn the body and toast his memory, then Sam will never ever forgive him.

Dean swears if he does die, he’ll stick around and they’ll get first-hand experience on how ghost sex works.

***

In April they take care of a haunting in Pennsylvania, about two blocks over from UPenn.

Sam draws stakeout duty, parked under a tree whose buds don’t offer nearly enough solid shade. Dean’s sweet-talking his way into the archives at the town hall to get a look at the files of the deceased drifter they suspect of terrorizing this poor old lady and her Pomeranian. The secretary at the front desk wasn’t making it too hard on him; Sam sensed his third-wheel status and just shook his head and returned to the car.

He watches the kids walk back and forth; skinny pale guys with collared shirts and backpacks bigger than the Impala; tall athletic girls with ponytails and yoga pants, rolling their hips and chattering about soccer stats and their tough organic chem professor. He sees one girl, short but curvy, run full-on into the arms of a football player, their shrieks of laughter echoing in the warm air.

He thinks that he could have had this.

He applied to colleges, of course he did. Would’ve raised an eyebrow if he didn’t - 4.0 GPA, Mathletes, Debate Team, kiddie soccer star, all-around American smartass. He didn’t check the acceptance letters. By the time they came, little packets of possibility delivered to P.O. Boxes scattered across the country, he was no longer looking for normal.

He had Dean, finally, and he wasn’t (isn’t ever) looking to screw that up.

Dean is quiet on the way back from the cemetery after an uneventful (knock on wood) salt and burn. He doesn’t even turn the radio on, doesn’t fill the silence with meaningless chatter, complaints about the case, or the motel’s annoyingly rattley air conditioner, crass speculation on whether the girl at the police station would be up for a threesome or random obscure facts about bands whose members have been dead or feuding for years. Sam is unsettled.

In the room, Dean paces, showered and barefoot, and strangely wired after digging up a mass paupers’ grave. They had to light up the whole shebang because it was impossible to tell which set of bones belonged to the train-hopping hobo who’d bit it back in 1933, had to get everyone, and the hole ended up wide enough to bury a caboose with room to spare. Sam was relieved that the ghost had apparently been otherwise engaged (creeping on that poor old lady most like), because he was so tired from playing backhoe that he probably would’ve let it kill him, knock him into the grave he’d dug and bury him with the other poor homeless drifters.

Sam watches Dean, and finally gets fed up. He’s tired, and he wants to sleep, but he sure as hell won’t be able to if Dean keeps fidgeting.

“Dude. What’s going on?”

Dean shoots him a _what-the-fuck-Sam_ special, and stops. “What?”

“You’re wearing a hole in the carpet. I can tell when something’s up with you. Spill.”

“Nothing’s up with me, Sam.” It’s the _of-course-dad-will-be-back-in-time-for-Christmas_ look, and Sam is not buying it for a second. Dean can’t lie to him for shit.

“Uh huh. Sure.”

“It’s nothing, Sam.”

“And that’s how I know it’s something. Don’t make me beat it out of you.”

Dean sighs. And paces. And finally stops by the window, hands in his pocket and Not Looking at Sam.

“It’s just-- You’re smart. Like Stephen Hawking smart.”

Sam blinks, crinkles his forehead in total confusion. “…Okay. And?” He’s pretty sure he is smart, but not quite _that_ smart, and he makes a note to remind Dean to smack him a good one if he ever starts talking to people who aren’t there or seeing conspiracies everywhere, accusing the government of putting mind-control drugs in the food or whatever.

“You did all that shit in high school, you know? All those advanced classes, all the extra-curricular stuff. I never really cared about that, and dad sure as hell didn’t. But you-- You could’ve gone, you know? Gone to college. Gotten out. Had a life.”

Sam stands up, makes his way around the bed. He watches Dean tense as he gets closer, shoulders curving in defensively, although he doesn’t turn around. Sam stands close enough that he can feel the heat coming through Dean’s t-shirt, smell the motel shampoo, and he slides his arms around his brother, feeling more than hearing the note of protest.

“I applied to colleges. A lot of colleges. And I’m sure I got into a bunch, and I’m sure I could’ve gone. But I didn’t. I didn’t even check the letters, because you know what? I didn’t want to go. I don’t want a life that doesn’t have you in it, okay?”

Dean relaxes, just a bit, and Sam tucks his nose in the side of Dean’s neck and breathes. “I don’t want to leave. I’m not going to leave. What do I have to say to get you to understand that?”

Dean turns in his arms, hands sliding up to tip Sam’s face down until they’re forehead to forehead, breathing in each other. “Show me.”

Sam shoves him back into the wall and kisses him, slides his tongue between those lips and proves it. He tears their clothes off, gets his hands all over Dean and wishes he could leave them there, that he could be everywhere at once. He feels Dean pushing back, giving as good as he gets, and this, _this_ is why he can’t leave.

He pulls Dean to the bed, buries him under his weight and kisses desperate and frantic, messy and wet. He bites Dean’s neck, nips his way down and buries his nose in the coarse curls at the base of his stomach, feels the muscles twitch under his cheek.

He draws it out as long as possible, watching Dean come apart, fingers grasping uselessly at the bedspread until Sam grabs them and twines them in his own hair, permission and invitation. He feels Dean shudder, hears him curse, flush obscuring his freckles and arousal fever-bright in his eyes, fingers gripping tight and drawing needle-pricks of pain from Sam’s scalp. When he comes, Sam takes it all, licks his lips and slides back up to kiss his brother senseless, share the sour-bitter-sweet, and Dean whispers that he tastes like Sam.

Sam finds the lube and returns, Dean sprawled sated and half-asleep with a lazy smile by the time he gets there. His eyes open, though, when Sam crawls back down his body and opens him up slow. He’s gasping, twisting and digging his heels in, and Sam finally grabs his legs, slides his palms under and pushes in. It’s a long way home, and Dean breathes out, harsh.

Sam drops his head close, whispers raw and open, “Look at me, Dean. Come on. Open your eyes.”

And Dean does, opens up and Sam can see everything, can see all the way down to Dean‘s soul, the deep dark places most people hide, but there’s nothing to hide here, it’s not even dark, just hot burning light (the way he used to look at Sam when he didn’t think Sam could see) and Sam is not prepared to see exactly how much he means to Dean, exactly what it would do to him if he left. He bottoms out in a rush, overwhelmed, and Dean doesn’t bother to hide the wince of pain, the way he tips his head back and bites his lip, hands coming up to Sam’s shoulders.

“’S okay, God, fuck, _Dean_.”

And Dean cups his hands around Sam and pulls him in tighter, makes him groan, and Sam thrusts as slow and as deep as he can, watching the moment the pain fades and Dean starts arching up to meet him, starts angling his hips.

“Sammy, Sammy…”

He’s tight and hot inside, sinful, actually, and Sam drops his head in between his shoulders, feeling the sweat drip down and watching it land on Dean’s chest, on his throat, and wonders if he will go to Hell for this. He can feel Dean opening up, taking him deeper, and Sam decides, on a groan -

“Dammit, Dean, don’t _do_ that, I can’t--”

And Dean smiles, wicked and wanton underneath him, and Sam decides he will dance the Macarena with Satan for eternity if only he gets to spend the rest of his mortal life like this.

Each thrust feels like falling, like a give and take, and with each snap of his hips, each nip to Dean’s chest or neck or lips, Sam is saying, _Me too_ , and he knows Dean gets it, he _knows_ , because this is how Dean speaks, crap with words but a fucking Picasso with touch. Sam knows, and pushes harder, and Dean understands, and takes him deeper.

He goes as long as he can, fighting for control of his trembling, traitorous muscles, and then Dean grips his hair and pulls him in, kisses him senseless, ravages his mouth and nips at his lip, bites along his jaw, and Sam shoves in harder, faster, hands like a vise and head thrown back, surrender and victory at the same time.

Dean’s facing him when he finally manages to open his eyes, body functioning on auxiliary power. He raises an eyebrow and Sam laughs, or tries to.

“Did it work?”

Puzzlement flashes across Dean’s face, summer storm darkening the green of his eyes. “Did what work?”

“Did I fuck some sense into you?”

A moment of suspended brilliance, and Dean punches Sam on the arm (weakly, all he can manage) and bursts out laughing. Sam basks, itching to trace the crinkles around his eyes, the line of his jaw and throat, but his arm is unresponsive. Dean flops onto his back, still chuckling, and a shadow of pain crinkles his forehead. Sam’s up on his elbow, leaning over and guiltily checking for any sign of damage.

“You okay?”

Dean looks at him like he’s got lobsters crawling out of his ears. “Dude, I’m not a chick. Just a little sore.”

Sam clenches his fingers in the sheets and tries not to feel like a murderer.

“I didn’t mean to--”

“Sam. Shut it. How’m I supposed to sleep with you guilting over there? C’mere.”

He reaches out, pulls Sam down with one hand and fights the blankets with the other. Managing to successfully corral them into a generally orderly fashion, he yanks them up and over as Sam pillows his head on Dean’s chest, smelling salt and soap and them, feeling the reassuring solidity of muscle and bone and skin, whole and undamaged.

“’M fine, Sammy. Stop worrying. I’d stop you if I didn’t want it.”

Sam closes his eyes and wraps his arm around Dean’s waist. “Like to see you try.”

“Don’t tempt me. I can still kick your ass, little brother.” There’s no bite to the threat, Dean’s voice rumbly with sleep and affection. Sam smiles, half of one, and knows that he might be Dean’s weak spot, but he’s perfectly capable of defending himself.


	18. Chapter 18

Weeks turn to months turn to years, seen in the rearview mirror on a hundred different highways.

***

John catches up to them in Indiana.

It wasn’t intentional; he’d given up on them a while back when all the phone numbers (even the In Case Of Apocalypse ones) ended with a clipped mechanical voice advising him to hang up and try again, this number is no longer in service. None of the IDs checked out, the credit cards were cancelled, and he was halfway to the nearest RMV to see if he could weasel his way into some clerk’s affections and get a tip on the car when he got held up by an overachieving red light.

By the time it was green (took nearly the entirety of Springsteen’s “Born to Run”) he’d reconsidered and pulled a squealing illegal u-turn and pressed the truck hard and fast until it started shaking. He didn’t stop for nearly twenty-four hours.

He’d left them alone, hoping (expecting) that Dean would show up, sheepish and chagrined, dragging the wayward Sam behind. It was his sons’ responsibility to find him, their place to repent and return. He’d done nothing wrong; it was on them to come back and beg forgiveness and his place to extend it if he so chose. He knew he’d raised Dean right (though Dean hadn’t done such a hot job with Sam, obviously), knew that his oldest was a soldier’s son through and through, with a head full of Duty Honor Respect and an obligation to his family. Dean would show. Except he didn’t, and drinking in the dark didn’t work the same way it used to when he knew that his sons would be waiting for him, salt lines drawn and bed made up. He started to wonder if maybe he wasn’t looking for them because he was afraid he wouldn’t find them. Or that he would.

He wandered for a bit, taking hunts when they dropped themselves into his lap, but not really looking. It’s a day like that, morning breakfast rush in a throwback chrome-and-glass diner. He’s just eating the special, dipping toast triangles into warm puddled egg yolk, when he sees the headline on a discarded local newspaper in the booth across. _Fire Claims Local Landmark_.

The waitress returns to check on her customer (grizzled and careworn, but obviously a real heartbreaker once), practicing her smile and hoping for a good tip. He’s clearly used to travel, maybe a trucker out of work, and they usually leave her a few bucks extra. Her smile falters when she sees the booth empty, toast soggy and cemented to the white ceramic with hardened egg. It returns, though, genuine this time, when she sees the folded bills shoved under the edge of the oval plate, a sixty percent tip.

She clears the table with a flourish and beams all the way back to the kitchen, and the cook’s sideways eyebrow raise doesn’t even register.

***

He doesn’t know how he knows it’s them; the article was disappointingly vague and full of small-town histrionics.

_The historic apple orchard of Burkittsville burned yesterday evening, with firefighters managing to save approximately half of the trees. The Pattersons, who live a half-mile away, reported the smell of smoke at about midnight between April 14 and 15. They called the fire department when they saw flames through the intervening woods. “It’s a real shame”, Roger Patterson, 56, told our reporter. “Some of those trees are hundreds of years old. One of them was brought over from Europe by the original settlers here. We lost a real piece of the town.”_

He checks the phone book in the pay phone next to the diner before realizing that Dean and Sam wouldn’t still be hanging around. The town was one of those small, tight-lipped communities with a carefully preserved historic district and an above-average percentage of nosy elderly folks. They would have stuck out like Arnold Swarzenegger in drag, even before they took to playing with matches.

He nicks the battered phone book and chucks it into the passenger seat while he fumbles through the glove compartment of his truck. Ten minutes of squinting at the map and cross-checking with the book gives him reason to believe that they probably hightailed it out of there, headed for the highway and the nearest town large enough to hide in.

He makes it there by midday.

It takes a couple circuits of the town (a few hotels downtown he immediately rules out; too pricey and artsy, not anonymous enough) before he sees the car. It’s almost an accident that he does; idiot runs out in front of the car ahead of him and he has to stop short. While the driver of that car is busy cussing and gesturing creatively out of his window, John happens to glance over at an alleyway with a clear line of sight to the back lot and the dumpsters of a hotel he’d initially rejected. He’d recognize his (former) car anywhere.

He was almost one-hundred percent sure that they’d still be here; the article had placed the fire in the wee small hours, and that meant they’d have just been getting to the room around daybreak. His boys were good, but even they didn’t function too well on fewer than five-six hours of sleep after a hunt.

The motel is seedier than the ones he used to take them to, the kind of place that gives a ten percent discount for cash and has abandoned the pretense of even asking for a name, and it occurs to him (uncomfortably) that maybe they’re hurting for money; living off of what Dean wins at pool and Sam rakes in at darts, and laying off the credit cards entirely. He’s not sure if that means they’ve gotten more honest or less, or if they’re just worried about him finding them. It’s hard to say which of the options wins the prize.

He skirts the overripe dumpster and pauses to check up on his car. It’s none the worse for wear, apparently, a little dusty but otherwise unscathed. He smirks at the Nebraska plates and shakes his head. _Attachment to possessions will get you into trouble_ , rule four. He would have ditched the car within twenty-four hours, wiped it down and stripped it of any identifying marks, burned off the VIN and left it somewhere where it wouldn’t draw attention for a good long while (inner city side street or abandoned farm land work equally well). Then again, that is John, and Dean always had a soft spot for things he considered his.

The front window to their room (on the end, good choice) is an opaque barrier of tightly-closed curtains, but the back window has a gap. He steps around the electric meter, boots crunching slightly on the dusty gravel, flattening the grass seed heads. The curtain is torn, ragged edge not quite making it to the right side of the window frame, and he doesn’t hesitate before peering through.

He should have.

As it is, he stumbles out of the parking lot in a daze, the stink of the dumpster finally penetrating, and he pukes all over the side of it, eggs, toast, and bacon marinated in black coffee. There aren’t really many bars open this early, but he finds one and drinks until the bartender cuts him off and the bouncer gets sick of listening to him beg and demand and then shove money across the pitted counter when the first two don’t work, and places him in the street with exaggerated care. He’s not sure how he finds his truck, or manages to figure out how to open the door, but he passes out blessedly quick.

He wakes at sunset, with a mouth that tastes like the creature from the black lagoon crawled in and died, and eyes that won't open right away, shot through with red like a tell-tale. He runs a furry tongue experimentally over his cracked lips and tries not to hurl.  This is a new truck.

He's still sprawled half on the seat and half in the footwell at sunset, praying to God, Yahweh, Muhammed, Jesus, Buddha, and Satan himself to erase the pictures burnt into his brain. He doesn’t know whether to shoot Sam or Dean or both, or just off himself. The strangest urge to laugh burbles up, but he bites it back, feeling the already unbearable throb of a Category-5 headache.

He lies there and wonders when he’ll have the strength to get up.

***

Sam throws a pair of jeans at Dean's head, and gets a grunt in return. "Come on, Dean. We've gotta go."

Dean burrows deeper under the covers, mumbling something that Sam's glad he couldn't understand.

"We've gotta check out, they're gonna charge us for another day, and then we won't have money for dinner."

That does the trick, and Dean shoves the covers back and sighs as he gets his feet under himself and stands up, working out the kinks in his back with an exaggerated groan. Sam fiddles with the shirt in his hands and traces the string of bruises with his eyes, the ones he left and the ones the assholes paganists left when they tied him to a tree like so much bait.

Dean catches him staring and leers. "Can't keep your hands off, can you, Sammy?"

Sam rolls his eyes and throws the shirt this time. "You wish. Come on, dude." He turns away and determinedly starts cramming all their crap into the duffle bags, hiding his smile.

Dean's still laughing when he gets in the shower.

***

It still catches Sam off guard, still shocks him that it’s like this between them. It’s been years, years and miles and too many lives, too much darkness. It shouldn’t be, but it is. He thinks Dean feels it too, catches him looking at Sam like he can’t quite believe it. He knows he does; watches Dean sleep after they’ve exhausted themselves between the sheets (on top of the sheets, on the floor, against the wall, in the shower). It makes him breathless, sometimes, that Dean can still stop his heart with a single glance, that Dean still looks at him like he’s the entire world and everything beyond it.

It shouldn’t, but it does.

***

They’re driving on a long highway, setting sun and clear blue sky of late summer. The air is warm and hazy, smelling of pine trees and rich soil. Sam sticks his head out the window and inhales, smelling something other than the slightly metallic, peaty taste of lake water.

He licked that taste from the hollows of Dean’s collarbones the night before, tried to erase the smell of algae and death from his brother’s skin. He remembers how Dean’s hands and feet were chilled (diving stupid-heroically into a haunted lake to save a kid tends to do that), but not cold, a fire still and always burning at his core. How he shoved him down into the bed, wrapped his fingers around Dean’s wrists and felt the dig of his leather bracelets, licked him all over until he tasted of sweat and musk and Sam, how he shoved in hard and brutal, buried his face in Dean’s chest and his teeth in his neck, thrust fast and desperate. How he demanded, _don’t ever pull that shit again_ ; how he pleaded, _don’t do that to me_ ; how he shuddered, _I love you I need you don’t leave me._ How Dean yanked his wrists free (friction burn on Sam’s palms from holding so tight) and pulled him down and in and met him every time, _Sam Sammy I know I know I know._

Dean looks over, and quirks an eyebrow. Sam blushes slightly but grins back, and something flickers in Dean’s face as he looks, Sam’s hair a wild brown tangle and skin warm with summer light. He pulls the car over without signaling, and stops on the shoulder.

Ten minutes later, when Sam’s bent over the hood, hot black metal sizzling along his chest, sharp pain where his hipbones dig in, Dean slides his arms under Sam and lifts up, pulling Sam’s sweaty tender skin away from the car, Sam closes his eyes and pushes back, hearing every word Dean isn’t saying. He feels Dean mouth along the edge of his throat, and twists his neck almost painfully, arms braced straight and shaking, to kiss him deep and sloppy and true.

He closes his eyes and loses himself, falls over the edge and down, feeling Dean follow and trusting him to catch them on the other side.


	19. Epilogue

Sam wakes up in a sweat, forehead beaded with sweat and t-shirt soaked through. His heart is pounding and his ears ringing, after-images burned into his eyelids. _A tree, a tree and a woman - blonde woman - screaming for help, and a house, the house--_

Dean wakes too, barely, arm tightening around Sam’s waist and a breath across his ear.

“Sam? You okay?”

He doesn’t open his eyes, and Sam sits up all the way, dislodging his brother and waking him fully.

“Sammy? What’s going on?”

His eyes are sleep-blurred, but his voice is clear and worried, hand reaching out to grip Sam’s arm. Sam turns, heartbeat finally slowing under the familiar touch, and he wants so badly to say, _nothing, just a dream_ , to fall back into the pillows and sleep a little longer, face buried in Dean’s hair and arms tight around his waist. He wants so much it hurts, but this is important.

He blows out a breath, and scrubs the hand not immobilized by Dean over his face. “I had, I had this dream, and it was so real. I think, I think we need to go home.”

Dean blinks, confused. “You had a what and you think we need to go _where_?”

Sam sighs. “I know how it sounds, but it felt real. There was this woman, and she was in trouble, and it felt like I was there, like I could, I don’t know, stop it somehow. So we need to go.”

“Go where, Sam?”

He swallows. “Home. To Kansas. She was in our house, Dean. Our old house. There’s something there, and we need to go.”

Dean just looks at him, disbelief and shock and sleep-mussed hair, and Sam hears the sound of a truck engine starting up outside, traveler wanting to get an early start. The heater kicks on, dull clunk and then a rattling hum, and the silence stretches between them.

This feels big, it feels important, and his face must show it, because Dean asks a few more questions but doesn’t really press. They pack up and slip out, door slam loud in the pre-dawn quiet. The sun comes up as they’re driving, golden rays piercing the remnants of last night’s rain clouds, and Sam watches Dean, slumped in the seat but driving well above the limit, tapping his thumb absently along to the beat in that way that means he’s thinking.

Sam turns to look out the window, farmland rolling by unchanged, and feels the first touch of worry in his stomach. They drive south and west all day, and towards evening, the sun sinks red into a lowering pile of iron-gray clouds on the horizon. The first rain drops spatter the windshield, and Dean flicks on the headlights. There are no other cars on the road.

They haven’t said much all day, but Dean draped his arm across the seat earlier on, and Sam leans into it now, feeling the warmth through the rough cotton shirt. He wonders why he feels so unsettled, why this feels different and more serious, even though there have been no deaths, no omens, nothing but a half-remembered dream and an indefinable sense of foreboding. He stops trying after a while, and stares sightless out the window instead.

The storm gathers, distant but strong, and the first rumbles of thunder reach them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, comments and constructive criticism are welcome :)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the poem "Electra On Azalea Path" by Sylvia Plath.


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